


If We're the Last Two People on Earth

by DestinyFreeReally



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: ? - Freeform, AU, F/M, Guns, Knives, Violence, Zombies, cursing, uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-11 00:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12310935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestinyFreeReally/pseuds/DestinyFreeReally
Summary: Sometimes, when apocalypse strikes, the buddy system's a key to survival. Logan x Veronica take on zombies, apocalypse, and building trust in a world ravaged by brain-eating buttheads.





	1. Introductions, first of all

    With a hard jerk left, Logan Echolls decided to steer toward a risk he hadn’t taken in nearly ten weeks. Ever since he’d left the overtaken New York safehouse, Logan had been able to keep his head down, keep his supplies to himself, and scavenge what he could, where he could. But if he didn’t talk to another person-- another _living_ person soon, he figured he was going to be as crazy as any of the things he kept having to kill.  
  
   For almost four days, every two hours the radio played a message, of what sounded like a girl around his age, broadcasting her location to assemble survivors. She kept repeating that she received no messages, and that she was still alone as long as the message was broadcasting. So, he turned left towards where he estimated her location.  
  
   Logan was about 50% sure it was a trap. Not a zombie trap, zombies weren’t smart enough for traps, and they didn’t need them. Survivors, though; were smart enough to lure other lone survivors into a trap, and either steal from them, or kill them, or… Well, the possibilities were endless, and all gruesome; humanity had been at war for almost six months. Anyone who still survived had fought for their survival, Logan included, and survival instincts came with lots of gruesome add-ons.  
  
    He followed radio-girl’s vague instructions to an abandoned, and past-it’s-prime super-market. It looked normal enough, obviously well-looted, but would protect from the weather, at least. It was a good spot to hole up, Logan figured; either alone, or with radio-girl. On the 50% chance that it _wasn’t_ a trap. Gun drawn, and senses keyed up, Logan ventured into the super-market unsure of what, or who, he’d find.  
  
    “Hello?” Sing-songing, Logan called into the aisles, looking for anyone, dead or alive. “Heellllooo?” Still no answer, Logan didn’t lower his weapon, but he at least felt confident there weren’t any zombies there. “I’m a lone survivor, looking for the girl from the radio. Maybe we could help each other?”  
  
    Veronica sat up straight. Every two hours, for days, she’d been using her out-going radio to signal nearby survivors. No one had answered her call, or come to her location. She’d begun to fear she was truly alone in the world.  
  
    “Hello? I’m back here, I have a broken leg, but I’m armed.” She called, leaning up on the counter, her weapon out.  
  
     When Logan came into Veronica’s view, she immediately looked him over for any signs of fresh bites, any indication that he was sick, or would be turning soon. That immediate threat taken care of, Veronica still didn’t lower her gun.  
  
    “Hey there,” One hand up in surrender, Logan eyed the girl, curiously. She was tiny, just exceptionally small, her clothes torn and bloodied like she’d seen her share of fighting. “Are you bitten?” He asked, a new form of greeting in a new human age.  
  
    “No, but my leg is broken,” she kept her gun up, as he eyed her leg.  
  
    “I can help with that, maybe,” Logan lowered his gun, and breathed easier when she lowered hers. “I don’t have a lot of medical training, but we could probably help each other. You look like you did a pretty good job bandaging that so far, maybe there’s still stuff in this store that could help. My name’s Logan,” he offered, still standing at a distance from her, but glad to see a fellow human face all the same.  
  
    “Is this a ruse to steal my money and supplies?” The blonde asked, her eyes gone suspicious of him in an instant.  
  
    “No,” Logan said, defensively. “Is _this_ a ruse to steal _my_ money and supplies?” He asked teasingly, and gestured to her clearly broken, and bandaged leg.  
  
    “ _Yes,_ ” she tore off the bandage and pulled her gun back out from somewhere, and trained it on him. “I thought you’d never ask,” she smiled. “Drop your weapons, I promise I’m a better shot than you, and I already have the head start.” Meaning the gun she had on him, Veronica tried not to laugh when he nodded.  
  
    “You’ve got to be _kidding_ me,” Logan swore under his breath, putting his pistol on the table next to her, sliding it down to her. “Buffy-Barbie comes with semi-automatic accessories and _ruses_ ?” He swore again, using words his mother never liked. His mother was dead, though; so, how much did stuff like that matter anymore?  
  
    “Yup, and the Ken doll just lost his bitchin’ wheels; you came here in a car, right?” Veronica asked, her gun still holding him up.  
  
    Throwing her his keys, Logan didn’t want to survive a zombie war just to die a casualty of human causes. He knew he could probably find an abandoned car not too far away; he was sad to lose his, though. He’d held onto it as long as he could, he figured. There was a pretty sizable stash of food, water, and gas in the car, too, and Logan mourned that loss, at least.  
  
   Hitting the automatic _unlock_ button, through the broken-out super-market window, Veronica saw the headlights flash on a yellow X-Terra in the parking lot.  
  
   “You’re joking, you came here in the world’s tallest taxi cab? _Yellow?_ How’d you even survive long enough to find me?” Veronica stuck to dark colors- dark clothes, dark cars; brought as little attention to herself as possible, visually. Deciding to broadcast the radio message had been a last-ditch effort to somehow get gas. Running her stolen car on fumes for her last few miles, Veronica had ended up packing up everything she could carry or drag, and making a run for it to the supermarket.  
  
   A big, bloody smudge on the X-Terra’s hood, Logan ran his hand through his hair thinking about the story that went with it. He’d had to mow down a crowd of zombies all the way out of the safehouse’s quarantine zone after it’d been overrun with the undead.  
  
   “What’s an apocalypse without a little flair?” Logan asked, still hyper-aware of her gun trained on him. “I guess this building’s clear, then?” Coming into the store, he’d been more worried about uncovering a zombie nest than a tiny, blonde stick-up artist, but Logan guessed that’d been his mistake. “You don’t haveta keep pointing that at me, I’ve already decided to comply.”  
  
   Tossing a sarcastic smile his way, the blonde’s eyes told him _yeah, right,_ and Logan found himself admiring that.  
  
    “You’ll haveta forgive me, I’m all out of good faith these days.” Veronica held the gun up a beat longer, and then lowered it, eventually. She had his car keys, she had his weaponry; Veronica was trying to figure out why she was still standing there. “Uh, okay, walk to the car,” she pointed the gun his way again, unsteadily.  
  
   “You’re taking me with you?” Logan’s voice squeaked surprised, but he was a little relieved, if confused. He wasn’t in a hurry to experience being stranded. “Can I drive?” He tested, obeying her order to walk to the car.  
  
   “Not a chance,” Veronica shook her head, even though he was faced away from her, leaving the store.  
  
   “Well, then I call shotgun,” murmuring to himself, false-pep in his voice, Logan made a move for the passenger side door.  
  
    “Wait,” Veronica stopped him, “Turn around.” Waiting a second for him to turn around to face her, Veronica dug in her pocket. “Cuff yourself to the handle grab,” she tossed him a shiny pair of handcuffs.  
  
   “No one told me it was kink night in club zombie.” Logan looked at the cuffs, and pouted at her, “when you say _cuff myself to the handle grab,_ you mean…” Logan eyed her gun, still pointed at him, “literally, of course. You know, this is most exciting day I’ve had in World War Zombies, and I’ve yet to see a zombie today.” Nodding to himself, Logan was starting to change his mind about this would-be ally. If he ever invented a time machine, he was going to go back in time and tell himself to never make that left turn. Or _at least_ tell himself her leg wasn’t really broken.  
  
    “Would you like me to leave you here?” Veronica offered the alternative, and in the face of it, Logan opened the door and handcuffed himself like she said to. “Thank you, was that so hard?”  
  
    Incredulous, Logan’s eyes widened at her, but it was hard to shoot her a look from his position in the truck. “What, sitting in on my own robbery and carjacking? Yeah, I think I’m gonna leave you a bad review on yelp,” he frowned.  
  
   “Hey, if you have access to internet, I’ll uncuff you.” She smiled, victorious, and went around the driver’s side. Six days into the zombie virus outbreak, the internet had gone down. Since then, communications had been viable through radio, exclusively. “No? Okay then. So where were you headed?” She asked him, realizing she should’ve made him sit in the back; they were too close just a console apart, she didn’t like it.  
  
   “Disneyland, and you?” He asked, dryly, glad at least when she tucked her gun in-between herself and the driver’s side door. Sure, he wouldn’t have access to a weapon in a pinch, but on the bright side, maybe she wouldn’t shoot him.  
  
   “Fine, don’t tell me,” she started the car, “so where were you when-”  
  
   “My parents were vacationing in the Hamptons, watching the outbreak on the news, when suddenly we didn’t have to watch it onscreen, anymore.” Logan said, repeating the story he’d shared over and over again in the safehouse. At first, he met some good people there, people he thought he’d survive with. Shaking his head, Logan reminded himself that probably all of those people were dead now. If not all, most. “You?”  
  
   Veronica kept her eyes on the road, pulling out of the supermarket parking lot, onto a highway filled with deserted cars, bodies, and debris.  
  
   “I was at Stanford,” she said after awhile, “On campus, we had a curfew the first night, and then. Well, and then there was no one to enforce it the second night. Me and my roommate, took my car and my taser and made our way off campus, but.” Veronica shook her head, “That was just the beginning, you know.”  
  
    Silence taking over in the car for a few minutes, Logan’s wrists started to hurt already, and he remembered the time before he’d made the left turn, when he’d been lonely, wishing for human company.  
  
    “So, where are you going? We, I guess, now.” Nodding at the handcuffs, Logan assumed himself at least along for the ride.  
  
   “I still think my dad’s in California, I'm just trying to find him,” Veronica asserted, although she hadn’t heard from him since a few days after the outbreak. She just knew he was alive, he had to be. “How do you feel about the west coast, so far?” She asked.  
  
    Thinking for a few minutes, Logan sighed. “So, why’d you really bring me along? Zombie-bait for your next trap?” He asked her, looking at her seriously, tearing his eyes away from the eerily silent freeway.  
  
    “Honestly?”  
  
    “Well, if we’re not honest with each other, what’s the point?” Logan spoke through a stiff-smile he wasn’t sure he meant.  
  
    With a sigh, Veronica rolled her eyes. “If I left you, you could’ve caught up to me somewhere, you know. And after robbing you, I doubt you’d wanna be apocalypse BFFs.” Plus, it wasn’t like she could pull the same ruse on him, again. Probably.  
  
   “Yeah, cause I’m really feeling the love handcuffed to the passenger seat,” he answered, gruffly, but with a reluctant grin.  
  
   “Plus, it’s not like I could’ve just left you there to die, you know. I mean, zombies we kill because we have to, but. Stranding you there…” Veronica spoke softly, and shrugged. With so few humans left in the world, Veronica made the snap judgement that leaving one more human to die would’ve been her being part of the problem.  
  
   “So there’s a conscience underneath all that Survival G.I. Jane get up?” He looked to her, impressed, “what _is_ your name by the way?”  
  
    “No names,” Veronica shook her head. “Just because I don’t want to kill you, doesn’t mean I won’t have to.” She swallowed the lump in her throat, and didn’t acknowledge it. Surviving the world, had to stay her top priority, with finding her dad staying priority number two. Letting her new friend/hostage get in the way of that was a non-option.  
  
    “I’m Logan, I’d shake your hand _but-”_  
  
    “No names,” Veronica turned in the driver seat, and almost swerved the truck; recovering, she shook her head. “Logan. I said no names, _Logan._ ” She glared. “This is why you’re hand-cuffed,” Veronica huffed, running her hand through her hair, and then returning it flat against the steering wheel. His vehicle was tall, she gave him that; running down zombies would be easier in the overgrown taxi than in her old toyota or the small convertible she’d stolen after that.  
  
    “Because my name’s Logan?” He laughed, trying to rearrange himself in the seat so he wasn’t leaned so forward with his wrists twisted up.  
  
  
    “Because you’re unpredictable,” she rolled her eyes. When she’d decided to take him with her, she knew it was a risk, she reminded herself of that, and took a breath. “I’m Veronica. No last names.” She insisted, eyeing him from the driver’s seat.  
  
    “Is that your real name?” Logan asked, fighting a smile. He knew one day being good looking and charming would become a survival skill; sooner or later, she’d uncuff him, and stop pointing her guns at him. Maybe they’d have to re-populate the earth; he was going to save that joke for the post-cuffs part of their relationship.  
  
   “Well, if we’re not honest with each other, what’s the point?” Veronica turned her eyebrow up at him, and then looked back at the empty road. It was going to be a long, long ride. When Logan laughed, Veronica relaxed a little, even though she shook her head, disapproving. 


	2. Side by Side

  “Come on, _please_ , there’s nothing wrong with this one,” Logan begged, watching the rest stop go by as Veronica kept driving past it. “It’s not like I had to foresight to go this morning, I wasn’t planning on becoming a hostage today.”   
  
    “And _I’m_ not planning on dying just so you can take a leak,” Veronica sighed; knowing that eventually, she’d have to go, too. “I’ll pull over in the clearing coming up, it’s higher ground and I’ll be able to see anything coming towards us.”   
  
     _Anything._ That was putting the _twenty first century plague_ mildly.   
  
    “Thank you,” Logan sighed, relieved. At least while he peed she’d have to uncuff him. “Just because we’re zombie-killers fighting for our survival doesn’t mean we need to go primal just yet, right? Plus, the interior in this car… I mean _leather_ … that’s not what you want to sit in-”   
  
    Veronica held her hand up; two hours back in the company of a human male and Veronica was already missing the silence of sweet, sweet solitude. Well, a little.   
  
    “I’m not saying I’ve peed my pants, I’m just saying that conflating wetting myself with becoming a walking happy meal for a toilet- I’m _sure_ I could find you an empty gatorade bottle in the back of your wannabe school bus if you really needed it.” Shrugging, Veronica pulled onto the side of the highway, up on the grass, even though there wasn’t exactly a flow of traffic to obey.   
  
    “So, is this where you uncuff me?” Logan asked, and Veronica swore she saw his eyes actually twinkle. When he saw her reach for her gun, Logan sighed, deflating as much as he could with his wrists still bound up to the roof of the X-Terra. “You know you don’t _need_ that, right? I thought we were bonding.”   
  
    “Listening to your extensive Sum-41 CD collection, and playing the license plate game with abandoned vehicles is hardly bonding, you know.” Veronica corrected, “And I really _do_ need this,” she took her gun out of the car with her, and did a safety sweep around the vehicle. “Coast seems clear for the moment, but let’s not stay too long.” She said, swinging open the passenger side door.   
  
    She was still torn about opening his handcuffs. In close quarters, he could definitely overpower her, he was a lot bigger. But, the alternative, knowing intimate details about his bathroom occurrences, convinced Veronica to pull the cuff keys out of her jacket pocket.   
  
    “I’m going to open the handcuffs,” Veronica stepped closer, speaking slowly, “but if you move before I step away-”   
  
    “You’ll shoot me, I got it, I got it, come on, time’s a bit of a factor here, Veronica.” Logan insisted, being about as patient with her as he could. He watched her flinch at her own name, like no one had used it socially in awhile. But she recovered, and stepped closer, her gun in one hand and the keys in the other.   
  
    “Okay, they’re open…” Veronica put the key back in her pocket, and stepped back slowly, letting him come out of the car.   
  
   “Oh my _god_ my hands are _numb_ can I be handcuffed to something else next time, _shit-”_ Wiggling his fingers, Logan rubbed his wrists where ugly, red rings had formed. “Shit,” he said again, working out his wrists still, and eventually getting out of the car and stretching his arms and legs.   
  
    “Time’s a bit of a _factor_ here,” she prompted, gesturing to a group of shrubs a few feet away where he could attend to some urgent business. “The longer we’re still, the longer we’re vulnerable.” Veronica pointed out, and Logan dropped his hands, nodding reluctantly.   
  
    “Put it in your kidnapper’s notes that next time fuzzy cuffs are requested,” he called, going into the bushes.   
  
   “Denied,” Veronica shook her head, denying the smile her lips almost formed.   
  
    After a few seconds, Logan reemerged, and Veronica flung a small something at him from her back pocket.   
  
    “Purell, really? Zombie apocalypse strikes, and you can loot the entire world, and you take-”   
  
   “Isn’t it coming in handy?” Veronica snapped back, and it shut Logan up long enough for him to use the purell and nod. “That’s what I thought,” she said satisfied, when he tossed the small bottle back to her. Throwing him back the handcuffs, Veronica flashed him her best ruse-worthy smile, and waited for him to know the drill.   
  
    “Yeah, yeah, _cuff myself to the handle grab,”_ parroting her initial orders, Logan climbed back in the truck, encouraged when she didn’t actively point her gun at him. “If I have permanent circulation damage-”   
  
   “You can have your doctor bill me.” Sighing, Veronica shut the door for him, and went back to the driver’s side, eyes still on the lookout for any approaching zombies. They were attracted by colors, noise, movement… All things human.   
  
    Hopping back up into the truck, Veronica tucked her gun back against her side, and pulled back onto the abandoned highway, going back to the Sum-41 CD they’d started before Logan had started whining about needing to use the bathroom.   
  
    “You could probably trust me if you got to know me,” Logan offered, and wasn’t surprised when Veronica shook her head. “Hey, I’m trustworthy!” He insisted.   
  
    Nodding, with just a hint of sarcasm, Veronica figured that was probably even true… before the outbreak. Before the outbreak, people could be counted to be just a regular brand of awful. After, Veronica shook her head. She’d seen parents use their kids as human shields against being eaten. Veronica knew no one on earth was trustworthy when they were facing extinction. Except for her father, but Veronica wasn’t sure where he was.   
  
    “You’re trustworthy too,” Logan pushed, twisting to look at her, “You’ve never done _this_ before, obviously.” He laughed a little, “I’m honored to be your first, Veronica,” his voice dipped low, but she just shook her head at him, dismissive.   
  
    “Let’s play the quiet game,” was all she answered him, and they sat in silence for awhile after that.   
  
  “Hey!” Logan shouted, and Veronica’s eyes snapped up.   
  
  “Sorry,” she said, softly, slowing the truck down just a little. His shout had her swerve away from the abandoned semi they would’ve hit otherwise.   
  
   “When was the last time you _slept_ ?” He asked, accusatorily. “I’m not surviving undead brain-eaters to die in a car crash because you’re too stubborn to let me drive,” Logan cursed under his breath, adrenaline still having him breathe hard from the near-miss.   
  
   “Recently,” Veronica answered him, but they both knew there was a reason she wasn’t being very specific. “When was the last time _you_ had a good night’s sleep, huh?” She asked quietly.   
  
   “Sometime before the outbreak,” Logan answered, dryly, and thought he saw her eyes closing again. “Hey, hey, hey,” he drew her eye, “I can keep watch now while you sleep though, and I’d really prefer you didn’t kill us nodding off.”   
  
    Tapping her fingers against the steering wheel, Veronica knew she’d have to take a break soon, but she didn’t want to stop moving just yet. Blinking her eyes rapidly, Veronica fought her drowsiness, focusing hard on keeping her eyes open.   
  
   “Seriously, it’s okay to just close your eyes for awhile, just pull over here.” Logan kept trying, and he would’ve tapped her across the console with his foot if he didn’t think she’d shackle his legs for it, next. “Pullover and I’ll tell you where I stashed the candy in this baby,” he offered, and that got her attention for real.   
  
   “What _sort_ of candy? You’re not gonna win my good fortune with an Almond Joy.” They shared a small smile, before Veronica turned her head back to the road, in time to see a zombie come into view. “Hang on,” she said, and when he just scoffed in reply, she shrugged guiltily. “Sorry, you’re already hanging on, I guess.” Revving the engine hot and high, the speedometer read 80 mph, as she ran down the zombie in the road, and kept rolling.   
  
   Logan laughing next to her, Veronica eyed the body in the rearview mirror, flat against the pavement and not moving, and gave him a smile.   
  
    “You mentioned candy?” Blinking half-in-expectation, half to stave off sleepiness, Veronica slowed the car and eventually pulled over, stopped.   
  
    Shaking his head, Logan told himself he should’ve known.   
  
    “Blondes and chocolate, it’s like genetic or something,” he smiled, “in the trunk, there’s a cooler with snacks, including possibly a Milky Way or ten.” When her eyes lit up, Logan knew he should’ve negotiated his hand-cuff situation then too, and sighed.   
  
   Climbing over the console, Veronica leaned over the backseat, reaching for a dark blue soft cooler she could spot in the corner of the trunk.   
  
  “You weren’t _kidding,_ this is quite a stash, Logan,” Veronica had her back to him still, and Logan couldn’t help but catch an eyeful of her ass in the rearview mirror. “You want one?” She asked, wrapper already off the one she was clawing at.   
  
   “Only if you promise to feed it to me and then catch some z’s,” Logan smiled, in a way that he thought was convincingly.   
  
   Easing herself back up to the front seat, Veronica munched chocolate and nougattey goodness, and leaned over him, slipping another open Milky Way into his handcuffed hands. With difficulty, Logan could feed himself, he found.   
  
       
  
    “As for those z’s…” Pestering at this point, Logan figured she’d sleep just to get a break from him; he was persistent that way.   
  
   Triple-checking that the doors were locked, the handcuff keys were stowed away, and her gun was loaded and ready to fire across her lap, Veronica finally leaned the driver’s seat back, head falling over to the side at Logan.   
  
    “You’ll wake me up if there’s trouble?” She asked, voice already softer and sleepier, in a way that made her seem small to Logan.   
  
   “I’ll have to,” he laughed, “I can keep watch, but you realize I can’t actually perform any defensive maneuvers.”   
  
   With a final look at him, Veronica closed her eyes, sinking down in her seat, “Or any offensive ones,” she added.   
  
    “We really have to work on your trust issues,” Logan complained, easing himself up in his chair so his wrists were a little more comfortable, “for the sake of my hands,” he laughed, but she was already out. _At least we’re not in a ditch somewhere,_ Logan thought; and I’m not still sitting in a K-mart, waiting to be eaten.  
  
  
      Silver linings were important in zombie apocalypses, Logan put that in his mental notes. Sure, he was handcuffed to his car, listening to a pretty stranger sleep. But silver lining? Neither of them were alone anymore, and that was finally starting to feel like a perk.


	3. All About the Double-Tap

  “Uh, Veronica…” Logan stage-whispered, trying to wake her gently, but quickly as he could. He’d decided to let her sleep as long as possible, and given the situation, Logan maintained he followed through on that decision. “ _Veronica…”_  
  
Blinking her eyes open, Veronica bolted up out of the best sleep she’d had in months. “What, what, what’s ha-”  
  
   Once she was sitting up, Veronica could see over the dash what was happening. Coming for them, was a group of zombies, still far enough out, but definitely hungry and heading for the X-Terra.  
  
   “That.” Veronica sat her seat straight, rubbed sleep from her eyes and grabbed her gun.  
  
   “Yes, _that,_ now hurry up and uncuff me,” Logan thrashed in the cuffs impatiently, eyes still on the company they were going to have very soon. “You’re gonna need my help here, and not just my incredible moral support skills.” Since she’d cuffed him the second time, Logan was counting on her to come around and finally trust him, and then give him the keys. But zombies had a habit of putting an immediacy into every aspect of post-apocalypse life.  
  
   Thinking for a second, Veronica let her brain catch up. They were about to be zombie snacks, unless they took out the things heading for them, and looking at the crowd of about two dozen zombies lumbering towards them, Veronica nodded, and took a breath.  
   
   “Lean back, there’s no time to fumble with the keys,” Veronica ordered, awake and ready for anything in seconds flat.  
  
   “Lean back?” Logan asked, taking his eyes off the zombies and leaning back like she said.  
  
   Leveling her gun at the chain linking his handcuffs, Veronica stalled when Logan squeaked out a protest.  
  
   “It’s not _faster_ if you make me stop,” she said, meeting his eyes. She wasn’t going to miss the shot; _she_ knew that, but he’d never seen her shoot. But Veronica nodded at him like a promise she didn’t speak, watched him take a deep breath and close his eyes, leaning back as far as he could.  
  
  Firing her gun, Veronica watched the bullet ricochet away from them, and Logan pulled his hands clear of the grab bar, heaving a sigh of relief. Shaking his head, Logan kept his focus on the zombies coming for them, and reached in the back seat for the gun she’d taken from him in the supermarket.  
  
   “Well, we’ll be talking about _that_ , later,” Logan forged on, with a deep inhale, and caught Veronica rolling her eyes. “That, too,” he sighed, re-loading his gun from the backseat. “How’re you on ammo?”  
  
    Checking her gun, Veronica nodded, “Fine. How’re you with a gun?”  
  
    “Fine.” It was Logan’s turn to roll his eyes, “I won’t be putting the apple on _your_ head any time soon, but I have thinned out the Halloween brigade a little since the outbreak, you know,” he didn’t know why he had to point that out, since he was _alive_ and everything.  
  
    “Well alright then.” That was good enough for Veronica. Sure, he sounded annoyed with her, but she figured if he took it out on the undead coming for them, then she wouldn’t care if he was annoyed. “I wouldn’t have taken the shot if I thought I was going to miss,” she added, for good measure.  
  
    “I know _that,_ ” shaking his head, Logan met her eyes in the rearview mirror, “and I said _later,”_ he added, softer. _“_ Swing us around to block the road, I’ll stay in the backseat, you stay up there, and what do you say we kill some zombies?”  
  
   Meeting her eyes again, Logan gave her a small smile, and lowered his window, sticking his gun out of it, ready to fire as soon as he had a clear shot.  
  
  “Some? How ‘bout all of ‘em?” Veronica took a breath, whipping the X-Terra to the new angle, nearly blocking the freeway. This way, anything that was going to get past them, was going to have to get through them, and it set up shots for both them to aim directly at the incoming set of undead.  
  
   Side by side, elbows just leaning out on the car windows, Veronica and Logan exchanged a nod, that they were ready, with zombies coming in just twenty yards out, and coming closer still.  
  
  “Echolls,” he said, lining up his first shot, between the eyes of a zombie in the middle of the pack.  
  
   “What?” Veronica looked to him, eyebrows gone confused.  
  
   “Last name,” Logan smiled. “Logan Echolls.”  
  
   Hissing a sigh, Veronica shook her head and fought a smile, firing straight into the head of a zombie, stopping him deader.  
  
   They took turns firing, putting down the zombies before they could reach the X-Terra, with Veronica carefully placing and making each of her kill shots, and Logan sending bullets a little wilder and more generously. When only one sad zombie was left, about fifteen away, limping towards them, dragging twisted, rotted limbs of fallen brethren with him, Logan exhaled a breath. Taking the final shot he left open for her, Veronica killed the last one, with a bullet between the eyes and lots of splatter, and sighed, too.  
  
  “Were you a sniper in a past life?” Logan asked, dropping his gun to the floor of the car, climbing back to the front seat next to her.  
  
   “Were you a pastor?” Veronica asked, and laughed when Logan shook his head, confused. With a false wince, she continued, “I just figured… with that spray-and-pray technique…” Laughing again at Logan’s incredulous face, Veronica ducked her head.  
  
  “Well, I was gonna let _you_ do the fun part, but after a crack like _that_ ,” shaking his head, Logan jumped out from the truck, going around to the trunk. After a second, Veronica jumped out, too, following him around.  
  
   “The _fun_ part?” Veronica blinked in disbelief, looking at the sledge-hammer in Logan’s hand.  
  
   “The double-tap.” Slinging the hammer over his shoulder, Logan walked past her, talking over his shoulder, “Get your gun for back up, and try not to shoot at me, please,” he flashed her a smile, and kept walking towards the patch of dead zombies they’d just created.  
  
   With a fake, exaggerated golf swing, Logan swung the hammer with force, striking a zombie head and sending it flying yards away.  
  
   “The _double-tap,”_ Veronica caught on, grabbing her gun from the front seat. “Lemme get this straight, you think the guy with the bullet through his head is playing possum?” She asked, shaking her head. Of course, being absolutely sure was better than being _mostly_ sure, and she gave him credit for that. But still, Veronica wasn’t ready to call it the _fun_ part.  
  
    Bringing the hammer around and crushing another zombie skill with a splatter and crunch, Logan frowned at walking through brain matter.  
  
   “No,” he shook his head, “but he did get up from being dead _once_ , you know. Just making sure this one really _sticks._ ”  
  
   Veronica watched him _double-tap_ another zombie, and she nodded. “There’s a little Survival GI Jane in you, too, I’m sorry I doubted you,” she gave him an impressed face, but balked when he offered her the handle.  
  
   “C’mon Veronica, I’m sure you could really _bring the hammer down,_ ” eyes squinting at her, Logan teased, still holding the hammer out to her, wiggling it a little at her. With a reluctant pause, Veronica traded her gun for his hammer.  
  
   Slowly, with minor difficulty, Veronica took the big, heavy sledgehammer, and flung it down at a once-person-once-zombie-all-dead corpse, and made it deader. And _squishier;_ involuntarily, she squeaked when blood, guts, and other gross things splattered, and the squeak made Logan outright laugh.  
  
    “This is gross, Logan,” Veronica argued, moving on to the next one, and bringing the hammer down with a little less difficulty.  
  
   “No such thing as good, clean fun in zombieland,” Logan laughed when she squealed again because of fresh splatter.  
  
   By the time Veronica crushed the last zombie skull in the pile, she’d begun to laugh a little bit, too, spurred on by Logan’s encouragement. They were both covered in zombie-gore, pretty much from the waist down, and Veronica was already thinking about the ways she could get a shower, but she had to smile at him for showing her the fun part.  
  
    “Mars,” she said, softly, handing the hammer back to him and taking her gun back. “Veronica Mars,” she walked back to the truck, leaving him to catch up behind her.  
  
    “So when are we gonna talk about you shooting at me?” Logan called after her, smirking to himself.


	4. Suburbia Apocalyptica

     Pulling into the driveway of what looked to be an abandoned home, Veronica heard crickets in the dark, and shook her head. Humanity was sliding down the learning curve of apocalypse like it was on training wheels rolling down a hill, but crickets. Crickets knew how to survive.

 

   Huffing out a sigh, Veronica raised her eyebrows at Logan, and killed the engine.

 

    "What do you think?" She asked, only hoping for running water and maybe a few extra supplies to pilfer, if they were lucky. Of course, if they were unlucky, they'd be stepping into a zombie nest and well on their way to being something's midnight snack.

 

    "I think, _ladies first,_ " Logan smiled, handing her a gun before they both got out of the truck.

 

    Rolling her eyes, Veronica nodded, creeping up the front steps of the home, with Logan behind her. Veronica knew, that before meeting Logan she never would've done something so risky, but she tucked that thought someplace else. Before meeting Logan, she never would've been covered in a thick coating of zombie slime, praying some old house had a working hose.

 

    "Look tough," Veronica called back to him, as she reached for the doorknob with a steady hand.

 

    "Always," Logan promised, gun drawn and ready, behind her.

 

    Flinging the door open quickly, Veronica crept in, trigger finger itching and amped for something to move or lunge at her, but nothing did.

 

   Creeping through the dark house, Veronica swore in her next armageddon bag she was packing the big flashlight, since she was armed with only the tiny one from her back pocket, shining little spots around the house at a time.

 

    Walking through the home, they stepped over broken glass, and saw overturned furniture, but aside from the general disarray, the quiet of the house was what threw Veronica. She could still hear the crickets outside. But inside, there was no hum of electricity, no movement. No life.

 

    "What do you think happened to them?" Logan's voice across the living room made Veronica jump. Crossing the room to see what he was seeing, Veronica took a shattered, framed family photo from Logan's hand, and placed it back on the mantle where she imagined it belonged.

 

    Slowly, she shook her head, "Nothing good, I'm assuming. They're just kids, in the picture." _Were_ , Veronica reminded herself, tucking _that_ thought away, too, and stepped back from Logan and the photo. "I guess the coast is clear and zombie-free," she took another look down the hall, and wandered into the master bedroom.  
  
    It was unsettling, being in someone else’s home. Veronica tried to liken herself to one of those hermit crabs they sold on the boardwalk. She was just a little hermit crab, and this was just an empty shell, she was borrowing from no one.

 

    "Found these," brandishing a small collection of candles, tealights, and matches, Logan beamed proud of his find.  
  
    “Mood lighting?” Veronica teased, and found herself unexpectedly glad she wasn’t alone for the moment. “Let’s light ‘em up,” she helped him set candles around the room, and suddenly the mood-lighting joke lost a little of it’s humor. In a stranger’s master bedroom, with another practical-stranger, surrounded by soft, sensual candlelight, Veronica reminded herself that they were living in a warzone, ravaged by the end of humanity, and any residual romance got sucked right out of the room.  
  
   “You want the first shower?” Logan asked, clearing his throat, and idly wondering if there was enough broken glass around to inhibit him kicking off his shoes and just passing out. _Eventful day,_ he thought, _kidnapped and everything,_ he smiled, despite everything.  
  
    “Desperately; you tried the water?” She asked, hope springing eternal for this place; she’d have to keep the coordinates written down so she could come back, maybe with her dad.  
  
   “Good to go, if you like cold showers.” Digging through the chest of drawers, Logan pulled out what looked like men’s t-shirts, in an extra large variety, and held pajama pants up to himself. Throwing a big t-shirt right at her head, he snorted a laugh when Veronica caught it with her face.  
  
    “I could still shoot you,” she shot him a half-hearted glare, and closed the master bathroom’s door behind her. Lit only by a few candles, Veronica was actually glad she couldn’t tell much about her appearance from the cracked mirror. _The end of the world’s a good diet, if nothing else,_ Veronica shook her head at herself, stripping dirty clothes off herself and braving the cold, cold water in the shower.  
  
    Logan wasn’t so bad, as far as survivors went, Veronica thought. She’d met a few in the last couple months, mostly people who’d lost themselves to the war against zombies. Logan still struck her as a mostly-whole person, even if they barely knew each other. _Last names,_ she shook her head. She wasn’t supposed to know anybody’s last name anymore.  
  
    Rubbing grime and gore off herself, Veronica helped herself to the coconut shampoo on the edge of the tub; just a hermit crab looking to get clean, she reminded herself. From the few safezones and quarantine camps she’d been to, Veronica knew grooming and hygiene had taken a backseat in most of the places she’d been to. And cold water running down her front, Veronica didn’t have to wonder why.  
  
    Rinsing her hair out, digging her nails into her scalp, Veronica tried to figure what was supposed to happen next. Taking Logan with her from the supermarket had been a snap decision, but long-term, Veronica wasn’t sure what their options were. She didn’t hate him, sure; she didn’t want him dead, or undead, but. She wasn’t even supposed to know his last name- it wasn’t like they could just team up indefinitely, she shook her head.  
  
   Hissing when she turned the cold water off, and braced the cold air, Veronica wrapped herself in a towel from the under-the-sink cabinet, and had to admit, she felt safer than she’d had since the outbreak. Her pulse wasn’t racing, she was clean, wrapped in a fluffy towel in a mostly-intact, regular house.  
  
    A knock startled her, but wasn’t enough to yank her out of her moment of peace just yet.  
  
    “Did you drown in there?” Logan laughed on the other side of the door, just checking on her.  
  
    “Don’t worry, the steady stream of ice water will be all yours in a second,” she called, sliding the extra large t shirt over her wet hair, and slipped back into the underwear she’d had on beforehand. Being a hermit crab, and wearing someone else’s underwear, were two very different things, in her mind. She had extra pairs in her bag, she just hadn’t thought to bring them in from the car.

  
    “Oh, gee, don’t make it sound so appealing,” Logan shook his head, pulling his shirt over his shoulders, running his hand through his hair. Cold showers hadn’t bothered him before the zombie outbreak, but losing the option of not-freezing was something he mourned. _Another casualty of war,_ Logan clicked his tongue.  
  
    Swinging the bathroom door open, Veronica walked out, nearly bumping into Logan’s half-naked body standing right outside the bathroom.  
  
    “Sorry,” she ducked out of the way, her dirty jeans, old t shirt, and wet towel, rolled into a ball in her hands. “All yours,” Veronica cleared her throat, and kept her eyes _away_ from him. “Coconut shampoo on the side of the tub,” she called, after he’d closed the bathroom door behind himself.  
  
   “I see it,” Logan shouted back. He smiled at the fresh towel she’d left him on the toilet seat. Like they were just hotel guests, in the world’s least accommodating hotel, Logan wondered if this was the new normal. If this could be how he, and Veronica, and other people could live out the rest of their days. _Cold showers, empty houses, and guns in every hand._ Stepping into the ice-water, Logan winced, rinsing the traces of war off himself for long, cold minutes.  
  
    “Did you drown in there?” Veronica shouted, when she heard the water turn off. “I scavenged the kitchen, and checked the perimeter,” she called, happily, sitting on the bed pretzel-legged in front of a full spread of crackers, cereal, and a sketchy-looking box of twinkies. There was more of the house to explore, and pillage, but Veronica found the twinkies and figured she hit paydirt. Tomorrow would be another day in zombieland, and she saved the liquor cabinet in the kitchen as something to look forward to.  
  
    Coming out of the bathroom, this time wearing the stolen shirt and pajama pants he’d procured, Logan laughed at the sight of her, munching probably-stale cocoa puffs with wet hair clinging to her face.  
  
     _Cold showers, empty houses, guns in every hand, and dry cereal,_ he amended, stealing a twinkie off the bedspread.  
  
    “So how’re we doing this sleeping arrangement? I believe all the couches in this home have seen better days,” he talked with his mouth full, eyeing her bare legs and the way the too-big t shirt cut off at her mid-thigh. Shaking his head clear of any bad thoughts, Logan flopped down on a chaise lounge across the room. “This torture device,” he flourished a hand at the gray chaise, “or the bed. I’ll flip you for it,” he offered, grabbing a quarter off the night table next to the chaise. The table had more pictures, of kids, of Disneyland, of a happy-smiling-family. Pressing on, Logan continued after a moment, “Heads I win, tails you lose,” he teased, and that got her to drop her mouth open, full of cocoa puffs and all.  
  
   “Heads _I_ win,” Veronica amended, “Tails, I’ll take the chaise.” It didn’t look bad compared to the front seat of his car, but Veronica couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept in a comfortable, whole, bed.  
  
    Flipping, Logan held his breath, and their fate was decided.  
  
    “Heads you win,” he relented, putting the quarter back on the night stand. “I’m exhausted,” he admitted, sinking down in the chaise. “Throw me one of your extra pillows?” He asked, and smiled when she complied, by hitting him roughly in the face with her throw, but she complied.  
  
   Smoothing her snack pile to the edge of the bed, Veronica got comfortable, too, pulling the blankets up.  
  
    “Think we’ll burn the house down with all of these candles?” She lay back in the bed, her eyes wide open, still. She was tired, too, but suddenly not very sleepy. “Should I go downstairs and check the perimeter, again?” Leaning up a little when she got no response, Veronica realized Logan was already lightly snoring. “Well, _goodnight,”_ she whispered into the dark, realizing she hadn’t had anyone to say goodnight to in a very long while.

 

     He was uncuffed, unrestrained, with ready access to firearms and the car keys, Veronica's mind ticked even with her eyes finally closed. Closing her eyes around him was a bigger gesture of trust than it probably appeared to him, or _would_ have appeared to him, if he wasn't fast asleep. Silently, Veronica couldn't decide if she envied him for being able to fall asleep so easily, around a stranger, around guns, in an unfamiliar place. It was enviable, she could admit that in the silence; but it would probably get him killed, she decided reluctantly, and eventually she drifted off to sleep, too. 


	5. the Exhale

     Rubbing a good night’s sleep from her eyes, Veronica sat up slowly, remembering where she was. A stranger’s bed, in a stranger’s home, but she was clean and well-fed and well-slept and-  
  
   “Logan?” Veronica called, panicked when he wasn’t in the room where they’d both fallen asleep the night before. Preparing herself for the worst case scenario, Veronica threw back the covers, jumping out of the bed, running to the window where- She breathed a deep sigh of relief, rubbing her eyes again. The car was still there where she’d parked it, and it wasn’t like she was attached to _Logan_ but her supplies were still in the trunk. Her supplies and his milky ways.   
  
    “I didn’t wanna wake you.” Logan leaned into the doorframe, coming from the hall. “Good news, you don’t snore,” he smiled at the way her fingertips were just _slightly_ tugging down the t-shirt an inch lower against her thighs. “I hope you weren’t hoping for an omelet station, but I did find some cereal bars.” Tossing her one, Logan fought to look away when the t-shirt’s edge rose. “I was hoping you might teach me how to make shots like you did yesterday. You’re not a very good kidnapper, but you’re an excellent marksman,” he paused, “marks _lady?”_ He tried, squinting a little at her.  
  
     “My dad taught me a trick,” Veronica talked with her mouth full of cereal bar, sweet and a little stale, she munched, “Normally, I wouldn’t share, but…” The X-Terra still in the driveway stirred Veronica’s goodwill. He hadn’t left her, even when he had the chance. The marks from her handcuffs had faded on his wrists, only thin, red lines were leftover reminders of the morning before. “Breakfast in almost-bed wins you something, I guess.” She smiled, shooing him away. “Lemme change. Go find anything breakable that hasn’t already been broken,” Veronica instructed, her eye already back on her gun. “And I thought I made an excellent kidnapper,” she called after him, already rifling through another cabinet of drawers.   
  
   When she emerged from the bedroom, in the oversized t-shirt she slept in, and women’s jeans six sizes too loose, Logan laughed, and eyed her gun in her hands. He’d taken her instruction, and gathered up mostly-whole mugs, glasses, and even one very ugly vase that survived whatever came to the house before them.   
  
     “Okay,” she pursed her lips, thinking. “Let’s see.”   
  
    Carefully taking the framed family portrait off the mantle and moving it to the top of an overturned couch, Veronica got to work lining up the assorted makeshift practice targets along the mantle. Stepping back, Veronica had Logan pick up her gun, and grabbing his elbow, pulled him back a few yards, getting some distance.   
  
    “Well,” she gestured, with a shrug, “Let’s see what you got,” she challenged him.   
  
    “I thought there was a trick?” Logan pouted, but levelled the gun, picking a plain old juice glass to blow away. Taking a last, unsure look Veronica’s way, Logan recentered and pulled the trigger, lodging a bullet in the wall a little left of the glass.   
  
    “Okay, hand it over,” Veronica nodded, “I just wanted to see what I was really working with, here.” Teasing him softly, and stretched her finger til it was comfortably hovering over the trigger. “I pick my spot,” she started. With Logan’s body too close, angled towards her and paying too much attention, Veronica had to refocus. “I pick my spot,” she started again, “I commit to it, I’m _sure_ I’m gonna hit it before I shoot,” she looked to him, pausing, “And my trick move? Release my breath before I fire, and right before I have to inhale again, _fire.”_   
  
    She focused on the _#1 Best Dad_ mug on the mantle, committed to it, was sure she’d make her shot, exhaled a long breath, and pulled the trigger, sending cheap ceramic bits flying every which way.   
  
    “The exhale?” Logan blinked, “Seems a _little_ bit of Dumbo’s feather to me,” he smiled down at her, unsure.   
  
     “Dumbo could always _fly_ though,” Veronica reminded him, pushing the gun back into his hands.   
  
    Spotting the ugly vase on the far end of the mantle, Logan braced himself, readied the shot, whistled a long exhale, and shot- straight through the vase.   
  
    “Are you trying to say I have big ears?” Logan laughed, proud of himself, turning to her with a grateful smile.   
  
    “Big _hands_ , maybe, my gun looks tiny on you,” she teased him, and took her weapon back. “There’s a shotgun in my bag in the truck that’s a little more your size,” she fired four more easy shots, clearing the mantle with a satisfied wink in Logan’s direction.   
  
    “Seriously,” Logan whistled, “All that from a little _exhale?_ Were you like a secret agent in middle school?” Laughing, Logan went to the mantle, leaning his elbow on the corner, sifting through pieces of shattered mug, holding a shard up to show her, shaking his head.   
  
    “Just _wait_ til I show you my skeet-shooting trick,” Veronica laughed, walking back to the kitchen. In the daylight, the house was less daunting, less eerie, less of a thing to fear. Cleaning debris off the kitchen island and putting her weapon down, Veronica took another deep breath when Logan wandered into the kitchen after her.   
  
    She’d shared her dad’s trick, her name, her gun; Veronica shook her head, reaching in her back pocket, bracing to share something else, when she saw something outside catch Logan’s attention through the window.   
  
   “What is it?” She brought her gun back up, ready, crossing the kitchen to stand in front of him, Veronica kept her eyes on the window.  
  
    “Could’ve been nothing?” Logan said, after a few seconds of listening intently and only hearing his own heart pounding.   
  
  With a sudden break to the calm quiet, a zombie came thrashing at the window, cracking and breaking the glass, stopped only when Veronica put her skills to work and shot through his head. Poking her gun through the broken glass, Veronica waited for more movement, more zombies, but no sound or sight of anything else came.   
  
    Relaxing his grip on Veronica’s shoulder, Logan pulled his hand back when he realized where it was resting.  
  
   “Sorry,” he mumbled, smoothing out the crumple he’d made in her t-shirt, “Should I get the hammer for the-”  
  
   Firing her gun through the half-broken glass, at close-range, Veronica’s gun made a splattered mess out of the zombie head.   
  
   “I’d say the double-tap’s handled,” Veronica smiled, letting out a sigh. “Think this place is burned?” She asked, looking around the house.   
  
    “Think we could tie the mattress to the car?” His hopeful look squashed by her mournful, negative smile, Logan nodded, solemnly. “I think we should start packing up, yeah.”  
  
    “I’ll get the shampoo,” she offered, brain already at work packing up things she wanted to take with her while they had the chance to pick up a few extra things.   
  
    “One shower and your life-saving priorities go out the window?” Logan teased, gathering the rest of the cereal bars from the kitchen, looking around for any other food or bottled drinks he could carry to the car.   
  
    “This place spoiled me,” Veronica answered with a shudder, remembering her previous life in a flash of second, before letting _life-saving_ priorities take over again. “And you wanted to bring the mattress!” She pointed out, throwing her gun down on the bed for the moment.  
  
     Stripping the pillows of their pillow cases, Veronica went to work and started packing the snacks she’d found the night before into the new cloth sack. Throwing loose twinkies, dry cereal, and the leftover crackers she’d found into the pillow case, she moved on to the bathroom. Unopened tissues, baby wipes, unburnt candles, matches, and of course, the coconut shampoo. These people may not have prepped for the end of the world, but Veronica wanted to seize her opportunity to live a little comfortably while she had the chance to. _If you consider toilet paper a comfort,_ she rolled her eyes at herself, again thinking about her old life.   
  
    “Ready to hit… the road…” Logan trailed off, watching her move around the bedroom in a flurry of motion, scavenging and looting like she’d already planned each find beforehand. “You actually _were_ ready,” he laughed, nodding, his laugh making her stop packing tissues into the pillowcase.   
  
    Grabbing the car keys from the gross jeans she’d worn into the house, Veronica flipped them in Logan’s direction, and kept moving, snatching her gun up, and slinging the pillowcase-turned-bag over her shoulder.   
  
    “Now I am,” she eyed the armful of assorted foodstuffs, and the bottle of wine, he’d foraged from the remnants of the kitchen. A last look out the bedroom window, Veronica saw their way to the car was clear and gave a nod to head out. “Guess what I found?”   
  
    “Purell.” Logan teased, following her out of the house, when she turned her glare on him.   
  
   “Baby wipes,” she admitted, fighting the urge to punch him in the shoulder, while keeping an eye out for any incoming danger.   
  
    “Apocalypse cancelled, then.” Logan laughed mockingly, throwing his new finds into the trunk of the truck. “We have baby wipes,” he took the bag from over her shoulder, fishing out the box of dry cereal and adding the bag to the pile of newly-found loot. “Need to reload?” He asked, shoving a box of ammunition her way while he tried to rearrange the trunk into some sort of order.   
  
    Handing him back the box when she was finished, Veronica took a deep breath. So zombies were still out there, looking to feast on her brain. That wasn’t a new fear, she’d been fighting for survival for six months, and couldn’t yet imagine a day when she wouldn’t have to look over her shoulder in case some hungry, ugly was coming after it’s dinner. She had food, bullets, a potential friend… she eyed Logan, rearranging their food supplies in the back of the car. She had a car.  
  
   “I really hate that it’s yellow,” she laughed, exhaling a final sigh. “You drive, I’ll navigate,” asking without asking, Veronica went around the truck, putting her gun in the backseat, and climbing into the passenger seat.   
  
   “I wasn’t aware we had a plan,” Logan looked to her, climbing into the driver’s seat. “A navigation-type plan,” he amended, truckful of food, weapons, and baby wipes probably putting them safely in some sort of survival-plan territory.   
  
    “I was going to tell you in the kitchen, show you my,” Veronica braced herself, reaching in her back pocket for real this time, “map.” She said, finally, bringing out a worn piece of map, folded into an impossibly small square. Unwrapping it carefully, Veronica didn’t meet Logan’s eyes, she stayed focused on the mass of red dots scattered on the map throughout the western United States, and the tiniest clump of black dots left to the south. “So, if we take this road _here_ ,” she squinted at the map, and finally looked up at him, “What?” She waited.   
  
    Inhaling a slow breath, Logan tore his eyes away from hers, and looked back at the red dots. The hundreds of red dots, and the few black dots left.   
  
    “You’ve been to every red space on that map.” It was Logan’s turn to not-ask, reaching for the map, but freezing when she pulled it towards herself, almost unconsciously. “Looking for your dad?”   
  
   Her chin dropped, and she relaxed the map to her knees. “The safehouses I didn’t find him at,” Veronica confessed, painfully aware of why she’d never shown this map to anyone. “The safehouses I didn’t find _anyone_ at,” she added, her voice on edge. _Anyone alive, anyways,_ she thought to herself. “But that _doesn’t_ mean-”  
  
    “It doesn’t mean anything,” Logan offered, hurriedly, putting the keys in the ignition, and starting the car. “It doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” with a shrug, he tried to muster a confident face to combat her deflated one.  
  
    “Thanks,” looking up with a soft smile, Veronica nodded, “I know how it looks. I just…” Spreading the map flat against her knees, Veronica felt more sure of herself. More sure of those little black dots left.   
  
    Pulling out of the driveway, Logan knew exactly what she meant. He was sure his family was dead; he’d witnessed it, and it’d been terrible, but he was certain. Imagining what not knowing must’ve been like, Logan just followed her directions down the road, tucking his own plan away for later.


	6. Seek and Destroy

    Driving through miles of deserted suburbia, on ravaged highways, over zombies and munched-on-human-corpses alike, Logan saw their destination before they really arrived. Behind two rows of mangled, barely-still-standing chain-link fence, Logan and Veronica could see the South Coast Plaza Center, turned South Coast Plaza Evac-Zone, before they got to it. There were abandoned security posts, former entry checkpoints, and Veronica knew that wasn’t a good indication of any survivors still being left. Their perimeter had obviously been breached, and whatever sought safety inside the mall probably wasn’t safe for very long.  
  
   “Times like this I almost miss my dad’s black card,” Logan gave Veronica a comically heavy wince eyeing the once-great shopping mall, as he pulled into a handicapped parking spot. _No parking tickets post-society,_ Logan put that solidly in the pro column, with a shrug. “A weapon for your explorations?” Pulling two guns from the backseat, Veronica took hers with an uneasy smile and got out of the truck with a shaky sigh.   
  
    “You don’t haveta come with me, you know,” Veronica walked around the car to Logan, “it could be dangerous. We don’t know what we’ll find in there,” she eyed the mall complex like it was a threat, because it was. “You could wait out here, if you want.” Taking an immediate look around,Veronica thought the parking lot at least seemed safe. Especially if he waited in the car.   
  
    “Stay with the car?” Logan shot her a doubtful look, “You just want all the fun to yourself,” he charged ahead, stepping over the mangled remains of the chain link fence that obviously hadn’t kept anything out. “And I’m not gonna let you have it.” Looking back at her with a smile, Logan was used to this risk. This risk was what had gotten him handcuffed and kidnapped, and eventually won him an apocalypse road-trip buddy. Not to mention, he’d scavenged the milky way stash out of a 7/11 he’d charged into, guns blazing before he knew what to expect inside. _Expect the unexpected, not to mention the undead,_ Logan amused himself; _they should make apocalypse bumper stickers._   
  
   Shaking her head and following him, Veronica didn’t see the end of the world as quite so much of an adventure as she was starting to understand Logan did. She had a job to do, she had a mission; find her father. Here, or any other of the black dots left on the map.   
  
    The mall lobby was truly a scene out of something out of a horror flick full of B-listers. Staggering quiet, matched with flickering lights and an eerie ambiance, littering the mall’s apparent open-floor plan were dead bodies, with the overwhelming _smell_ of death that made Veronica and Logan slow their pace. With a slow shake of her head, meeting Logan’s eyes, Veronica knew something bad happened there. But everywhere she’d been in the last six months had been torn to shambles by the end of the world. In this place, she just really hoped the something bad hadn’t also happened to her dad.   
  
    When something stirred and snarled down one of the mall’s wings, Veronica pulled Logan behind a column, throwing his balance with a hard pull.   
  
   “Gunfire too early will draw every unliving thing within earshot to our sounds,” she whispered close to him, her eyes scanning the corridor for what was making noise. “I wish we knew how many undead were in here,” she sighed, but moved on, “only fire if you’re sure, okay?” Swallowing her uncertainty in a heavy gulp, Veronica checked with Logan’s eyes until he offered her a nod.   
  
   “Worried I’ll become a liability?” Logan teased her in a hushed whisper, hyperaware of where her hand had been on his arm. “Don’t worry, nothing about me goes off prematurely,” he whispered, earning a fresh glare he was starting to find familiar.   
  
   “And apparently nothing about you is  _mature_ ,” Veronica whispered back, a small smile pricking up the corners of her lips, even as she tried to squash it. Leading them down the corridor, Veronica made sure to place her feet carefully, stealing quick looks at the bodies she stepped over; always looking, but hoping not to find, her father.   
  
    Stores full of  abandoned tents and shelters, and knocked over retail racks, Veronica knew she was going to kick herself if they didn’t collect supplies before they left.   
  
    With a stutter and an under-his-breath swear, Logan tipped himself up over a decapitated leg- just tripped, but it was enough of a sound and commotion to draw the attention of the zombies they were trying to sneak up on.   
  
    Veronica heard Logan trip, and curse under his breath, and saw the zombies’ attention turn to them, but when one set of red-glowing eyes focused her way, Veronica froze. One of the faces, one of the chins dribbling with the brains of some fallen schlep, was her father’s- and Veronica’s world started spinning in slow motion. Backwards.   
  
    For six months, she’d searched tirelessly, always knowing in the back of her head that this was a possibility, but never letting it really register so. Despite the apocalypse, despite her friends, best friends, and most of humanity falling prey to the end of the world, Veronica always believed that somehow she and her dad would be able to save each other, to stay alive and everything else would fall into place. _Breathing,_ Veronica thought to herself, _I’m not breathing._   
  
    Forcing herself to inhale, and exhale, and blink, and reenter the world, this time without her father in it, Veronica struggled.   
  
    She fired her gun at her father, no- not her father- just the monster that was wearing his face- but, she missed, and had to shoot again, this time hitting her mark, right between the eyes. Ignoring the way her vision was blurred, Veronica killed the other zombie with another quick shot, before Logan caught her arm and her attention.   
  
    “I thought you just said-” Logan saw the way her eyes had gone too shiny, too glassy, and he hadn’t missed how she hadn’t made that first shot. “Are you alright?” He asked, and held his hand to her shoulder, fighting the unspeakable urge to cup her chin.   
  
    Pulling back from him, Veronica blinked her vision clear, and shook her head, “Just the smell in here, really making my eyes water.” Swallowing the hard lump in her throat, Veronica barely trusted her voice to lie any further.   
  
     When she heard gurgling and sputtering behind her, she spun, firing bullets at the five or six zombies her gunfire had drawn to them, feeling anger bubble in her chest that they were still standing when she’d had to kill her own father.   
  
    Before Logan even had enough time to register the threat and respond, Veronica had dealt with all their undead company, and moved forward through the mall, looking for any zombies still looking for brain-type food.   
  
     _Get tough, get even?_  Veronica asked herself, and knew it was going to take a lot more bullets before her and the world were even. Logan in her periphery backing her up, Veronica went through the mall, looking for survivors and killing zombies everywhere she saw them, not missing a shot, no double-tap required.   
  
   When they were done, sure they’d killed all the zombies they could find, Veronica found herself backed into a wall, and slid down to sit, taking the first real breath she’d managed since her dad, and Logan took a seat next to her.   
  
    “We probably shouldn’t stay long,” Logan said, nudging her shoulder with his, a soft tap that grounded her a little.   
  
    “I know,” she nodded, picturing her dad’s brown eyes gone red, looking at her like lunch, and she felt impossibly worse. _Does the truth help?_ Veronica placed her gun across her knees, gun pointed out. Promising herself that she’d find her father, Veronica realized she’d never fully prepared herself to find him like that. “We should take everything we want and can carry,” she tried to get her mind to move forward, to move past the set of glowing eyes. “I saw bottled water in one of the tents we passed on our way in,” keeping her eyes away from Logan, Veronica felt tears coming again, and bit her cheek til the swell of salt water went away.   
  
    Getting up from the floor, and pulling Veronica with him, Logan nodded, and moved her with him, going back for the bottled water, and a stash of pudding cups he saw on the way out to the car. Following him numbly, Veronica knew she wasn’t acting normal, she wasn’t acting like herself, but reminded herself that Logan didn’t know her. He didn’t know how she’d act, they were strangers, and that was for the best.     
  
    He realized something had seriously changed, when they got back to the car and she let him drive without protest. Without comment.   
  
   “I think I’m gonna catch a nap,” Veronica angled herself in the passenger’s seat, sinking down and forcing her eyes closed.   
  
    “Right,” Logan nodded, eyeing the next black dot on Veronica’s map.


	7. Already in the Aftermath

    Locking a sleeping Veronica in the car, Logan had no doubt she would shoot him if she woke up alone and trapped, so he decided to move as quickly as possible. Patrolling the perimeter around another seemingly-abandoned house, Logan didn’t see any apparent threats or dangers, and moved on to the house itself. In picking the non-descript, decrepit post-apocalypse townhouse, Logan thought Veronica might approve. He crept through the house, up the stairs to the master bedroom that was still mostly intact. Smaller than the last place they’d crashed in, but zombie-free as far as he could tell, and safe for the night.  
  
    Once the house was deemed safe, Logan got to work giving the place some light, using the candles and matches from the car to even get the house’s fireplace lit. Candles lit upstairs, too, Logan figured he was racking up some kind of fire-safety violation once the house had a dim glow about it.  
  
    Then, as quietly and gently as possible, Logan unbuckled Veronica from the X-Terra and carried her to the house, careful not to jostle her, not to wake her.  
  
    By his count, Logan had killed about six or seven zombies at the mall, and by his count, Veronica had killed about two dozen. She’d reloaded like a force of nature, and had kept her quips to the barest minimum, which had Logan pretty convinced something was wrong.  
  
    But she’d fallen asleep in the truck before he found the right way to ask what was off. They didn’t know each other all that well, he had his secrets from her, and he was sure she kept hers from him. There wasn’t a lot of Dr. Phil after the end of the world, and Logan wasn’t sure how to approach anything too touchy, if anything _was_ wrong.  
  
    Dropping her softly into the bed, Logan thought he caught a whiff of the coconut shampoo as he slid hair off her face, and he couldn’t help smiling to himself.  
  
     _Getting soft, Echolls._ Logan left Veronica asleep, wanting to take a better look around the house. _Please let there beer, please let there be beer._ Even warm, Logan figured he’d take it.  
  
    He didn’t find any beer, but he did find an extensive CD collection to pilfer from for road trip music, and he also found quite a few jars of canned fruit.  
  
    After downing two cans of chopped pineapples, Logan spread out on the living room carpet, basking in the glow and the heat of the fire, unsure why he was still too amped to fall asleep. _Too amped, or too preoccupied?_ He leaned his head against his hand, closing his eyes for what only seemed like a few moments, before a scream upstairs had him wake with a start, and reaching for his gun.  
  
    “Veronica?” Logan ran up the stairs, back to the bedroom, where he found Veronica still asleep and screaming for help, screaming for her father. “Veronica,” Logan called with more force, leaning down to the bed.  
  
    With a gentle shake of her shoulder, Logan saw her eyes open- and she abruptly stopped screaming.  
  
    “Sorry,” Veronica ran a hand down her face, rubbing nightmares out of her eyes, wishing she could erase memories altogether. “Where am I?” She blinked at Logan, where he was standing over her, flickering candlelight showing his face concerned. “Where are we?” She asked, voice freshly raw with yelling.  
  
    “Jeez, you scared me,” Logan sighed and relaxed, kneeling down next to the bed as Veronica sat up. “An empty house a couple hours from the mall,” he explained, “I didn’t wanna wake you, you seemed like you could use the sleep. Not the bad dreams, though,” he leaned up and reached to smooth sweat-slick hair from where it stuck to her forehead. “Can I get you anything? Water? Can of pineapples?”  
  
    “Did you carry me?” Still blinking, she tried to catch up, still contending with the mental image of shooting her father’s zombified face, shaking her head, trying to remember anything after that.  
  
    “I figured it’d be more pleasant than dragging you,” he joked, and watched her lips twitch into an almost-smile. “We’ll be safe here for tonight, I think.”  
  
    In the six months since the outbreak, Veronica hadn’t once slept anywhere she hadn’t verified was safe with her own two eyes. But, for six months, she’d had a reason to push through the carnage, to keep searching for her dad. Her dad was gone, and she’d verified _that_ with her own two hands.  
  
    “Thanks,” Veronica nodded, remembering Logan was still in the room with her, still expecting her to respond, still expecting her to be normal because she hadn’t told him why he should expect anything different. “Did you try the water, by any chance?”  
  
    A frozen shower wasn’t what she _wanted,_ but Veronica figured it couldn’t hurt her. What could, anymore?  
  
    “Comes out clear and cold,” he nodded, wondering idly if there was such a place he could trade hollow point bullets for hot water.  
  
    “Were you headed to the shower?” She asked, sitting up properly in the bed, eyes now fully adjusted to the dim nighttime lighting.  
  
    “I was only charging in to kill the thing that was murdering you,” Logan tried to joke, as he looked her over again, “Are you sure you’re alright?”  
  
   Was she? Could she ever be? After the end of the world, Veronica was sure she’d been through every stage of grief a thousand times over, she was sure she’d seen the worst that humanity could do to itself, she was sure she’d seen every bad thing possible. And now, Veronica was _really_ sure she had.  
  
    “Yeah,” swallowing the lump in her throat, she added, “Plus, it’s your turn with the mattress, here, take it, I’m gonna shower and probably look around a little bit.” Shrugging, Veronica lifted the covers to get up and realized he’d even taken off her shoes to keep her comfortable. “How asleep _was_ I?” She shook her head, only too aware of how Logan was still watching her with care. The nightmare, the screaming; Veronica chided herself. _Yeah, well, maybe_ this _is the bad dream,_ Veronica thought to herself, taking a candle from the nightstand with her to the bathroom, excusing herself past Logan without taking too long a look at him.  
  
    Rummaging through this bathroom, Veronica took her time, poring over every left-behind item like it was a clue into the previous inhabitants’ lives, and keeping an eye out for things she could take with her. Band-aids, they could use. Fruity shampoo, rubbing alcohol. Bleach. Condoms, Veronica shook her head at. Fresh towels in the rack, she was going to use.  
  
     _Fine, maybe I do want to keep surviving,_ Veronica thought, slipping her clothes off and stepping into the cold shower. Even without her dad, even without her mission, she decided her life wasn’t over.  
  
    She was still a little unsure about what came immediately next, though. Without a plan and without her dad, for the first time in six months, Veronica felt genuinely uncertain about what to do next. Logan Echolls was an asset, but for how long? How long until he was just another familiar-faced zombie she would have to kill? Toweling off, letting cold water drip from her hair down to her back, Veronica didn’t realize she was crying until she looked in the mirror and her vision was blurred.  
  
     With a quick peek out of the bathroom door, Veronica saw Logan laying asleep, and breathed a sigh of relief. Rifling through a dresser, Veronica found something that looked like pajamas in the candlelight, and dropped her towel with her back to Logan, listening for changes in his breathing that never came.  
  
    Dressed, dry, and still upset, Veronica ran her hands through her wet hair, and told herself to keep moving. Slipping her shoes back on, her breath hitched when she spotted the keys to the X-Terra on the night table next to the bed. Carefully quietly, Veronica took the keys, pressing the serrated end against her palm, taking a last look at Logan curled into his own side, as she left the room.  
  
    Creeping down the stairs, past the fireplace, out the door, Veronica got into the truck and closed the driver's side door with a soft click. Putting the key in the ignition, she put her palms up on the steering wheel, tapping her fingertips against it in a slow rhythm. The nights were so quiet, in the new world they lived in now. She could hear every one of her thoughts, every one of her fears; she could hear the blood pumping in the tips of her ears as she took the key out of the ignition, and changed her mind.  
  
    Just as quietly, Veronica put the keys back on the night table next to the bed, and kicked off her shoes again.  
  
    “I thought you were going to leave me here,” Logan leaned up on his arm, looking at her in the candlelight. The car door closing had woken him up, and the car keys and Veronica mysteriously missing simultaneously didn’t leave a lot for him to parse out.  
  
     _I thought I was, too,_ Veronica swallowed a fresh lump in her throat.  
  
    “Just _really_ wanted a milky way,” she brandished the candy bar that she’d taken from the truck on her way back in the house. Offering Logan a soft smile, Veronica didn’t want to think about all the reasons she _hadn’t_ left him there. She didn’t want to think about the reasons why she still thought she _should’ve._ “Want a bite?”  
  
    Nodding sleepily, Logan shifted in the bed, making room for her to sit next to him, and was glad when she did.  
  
    “We don’t have to follow my map, anymore,” Veronica sighed, breaking off a piece of the candy bar and handing it to him. If she was going to make a new plan that included Logan, she figured she was going to have to tell him the old plan was cancelled.  
  
    “What do you mean?” Logan sat up fully, taking chocolate from her and waiting for her to explain.  
  
    “I mean, I’m not still looking for my dad.” It’d only been a split-second decision, with her rational, regular, brain processes muffled by grief and surprise, when she’d decided not to tell Logan about her dad being a zombie twenty feet from them. She'd feared saying the words outloud then would've made it too real, would've rendered her unable to do what she knew she needed to do, which was kill the thing that looked like her father. Her sweet, loving father. “We… uh, found him,” Veronica’s chest heaved to say it, “Today. In the mall.” Clearing her throat, Veronica was about to grab the keys and run again, this time for good, when Logan’s hand touched hers in her lap.  
  
    “That was why you shot when the plan was to hold off,” Logan nodded, numbly, replaying the whole day differently in his head. “ _T_ _hat_ was your…” he trailed off, looking to her for answers, as bile rose in her throat. “Hey, hey, hey,” acting on instinct, Logan pulled Veronica into his chest when she started to cry, nodding. Gently pulling her down into the bed with him, Logan was prepared to blame temporary insanity if she started reaching for her gun to shoot him for getting handsy, but she didn’t. She twisted in his arms only to get comfortable, and cried into his chest until she fell back asleep.


	8. Coyotes in Bed, Zombies in the Bedroom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe a little more violent than previous chapters? I can't really tell? But there's some more zombie apocalypse typical zombie interactions

    Veronica’s eyes opened slowly, and as gently as possible, she pulled her arm back from where it was resting across Logan’s chest. Angled this way against him, Veronica could see how in another life he might've been her type. Disarmingly cute, especially being  _alive_ and all, but he knew he was attractive, which made her want to deny it harder. Easing her body weight from his, Veronica took a silent breath, and then noticed him grinning with his eyes closed.  
  
    “You could have woken me up instead of pretending to be asleep,” leaning up on her arm, Veronica spotted a twitch in his smirk.  
  
    “I’m not pretending to be asleep, I’m simply not acknowledging that I’m awake, yet,” Logan offered, cracking one eye open at her. “How are you feeling?” Voice still-gentle with sleep, he rolled on his side to face her.  
  
    “Do you know what it means when a guy’s _coyote_ ugly?” Eyebrows up, ready to mock him either way, Veronica decided she was going to try not-coping with her father’s death. She was going to try staying numb and getting angry to see how it suited.  
  
    “Like the movie?” Checking her face for a nod, Logan was sure he could see grief in it, too. “Like… something about waking up after a one-night-stand with a guy in your bed, so ugly that you chew your own arm out of it’s socket rather than wake him up.” He hadn’t known Veronica very long, but if indulging her was going to keep her from running away, was going to keep her from leaving the bed for five more minutes, Logan supposed he was willing.  
  
    “Something like that? Exactly that,” she smiled, chin jutting out at him, “Me and my roommates used to love that movie.” Categorically in Veronica’s brain, looking back at fond memories was usually a task she avoided, but Veronica indulged herself, too.  
  
    “Are you saying I should roll over and pretend to still be asleep?” Logan laughed, drawing her eyes back to him from wherever that memory took her.  
  
    “I’m saying no one who’s ever woken up with you next to them has ever had that thought.” Her grin went lopsided, and for a minute he couldn’t tell who was teasing who anymore, only of course, she was teasing him. “You don’t have to worry about waking me up next time,” she shook her head, and rolled on to her back to escape the way he was smiling at her, because she didn’t mean _next time they woke up in bed together,_ she just meant, you know, next time. “Everybody’s an orphan in this world, I don’t know why I thought I’d be the exception.” Hanging her arm over her face, Veronica knew she was done crying. She still needed to defend herself, she still needed a new plan, but the world just felt _emptier._  
  
    “Because you’re exceptional?” Logan suggested, like a question; and he didn’t mean her sharp-shooting abilities.  
  
    “Exceptionally _what,_ deluded?” Knowing she was snapping at him while he was being nice, didn’t stop her from snapping at him.  
  
    “Maybe a little, yes,” with a half-nod, Logan braved her glare from under her arm, “but I’d really like to stay together anyway, and let your delusions slide,” he tried to tease, smile only dropping from his face when Veronica got up from the bed.  
  
    “Gonna get food,” Veronica shook her head at the way his face had gone comically flat. She was in another assumably-dead stranger’s home, in their bed, wearing their pajamas, and missing her father. Being mean to Logan wasn’t the _last_ thing on her to-do list, but it wasn’t first, either. “Wanna come? I wanna check the place out, see what kind of job you did scouting for us.”  
  
    “Okay, these people were _freaks_ , they must’ve seen the _incoming-apocalypse_ banner on the Sunday night news, and stocked up on canned fruit for survival.” Excitedly, Logan jumped up from the bed, remembering there was a lot of this house he hadn’t seen himself. Including the cold shower, but he let the thought drop for the moment.  
  
    “ _God,_ remember the news? The first outbreak headlines  calling it a _disease_ that reanimated corpses.” It’d been terrifying in real time, but looking back to six months ago, at the beginning of the big, bad thing, it was almost sort of funny. “Also, was that what the canned pineapple thing was about last night?” She talked over her shoulder while leading him down the stairs, connecting a few more dots from the previous night. “About last night…” She’d teased him about coyote ugly men, but she couldn’t imagine how differently things would have been if she’d found her father zombified or dead at any of those other red dots, while she’d been alone.  
  
    “Hey, I’m here if you wanna- _run!”_ The zombies came into view with just a second to spare, and Logan roughly pulled Veronica back by the shirt sleeve, tugging her behind him back up the stairs.  
  
     Slamming the door closed behind them, Veronica scrambled to push an end-table to it, looking for anything else that would barricade the door and buy them a few more seconds while the zombies lumbered up the stairs after them.  
  
    “Okay, rough numbers, two of us, at least six zombies, and only the one gun,” Veronica exhaled a breath through her mouth and looked for anything else in the room that could either be used as a weapon or an escape tool, with Logan loading fresh rounds into the gun they did have.  
  
    “Take it, you’re the better shot,” pushing the gun into her hands, Logan grabbed the lamp from the corner of the room and got ready to swing it like a bat through some zombie heads. “Plus I have actual bicep muscles,” he teased her, keeping his voice light. Just because they were outnumbered and surprised, didn’t mean they were dead.  
  
    “You tuck yourself into that corner, I’ll take this one, it’s one of the best tactical positions if we’re both the furthest we could be from the door.” The more distance between them and the zombies, the better, Veronica knew that, and planted her feet with her back pressed to the corner of the room.  
  
    “There’s always a window to jump from,” Logan joked, his eyebrows popping towards the bedroom window. They’d hit the pavement, though, and Logan wanted to keep that as an absolute last resort. Readying himself in the bedroom corner, he didn’t like the idea of a room between them. A room between them that was going to be filled by zombies.  
  
    “I’m not sure how nice of a nurse I’ll be if you break a tibia,” Veronica saw his way, to go out with a joke, and took it, pulse thrumming in her ears over the sounds of snarling, undead, hungry zombies pushing on the bedroom door.  
  
    “Oh, I know you’d step over me and leave me on the ground if you had to,” he laughed, when the wood of the bedroom door splintered, and a zombie came in stumbling over the end table, and more zombies came stumbling in over that one.  
  
     _More than six,_ Veronica exhaled an increasingly panicked breath as she was starting to be able to make out how many zombie were coming after them, and starting to not like what she was seeing. If she ran out of bullets… “I’d leave you with food,” she yelled over her own gunfire, hitting one zombie above his left eyebrow, making a mess.  
  
    “No milky ways, though,” Logan called back, and abandoned his lamp momentarily, electing instead to chuck books from the bookshelf next to him. _Big, heavy missiles._ They wouldn’t be fatal, but Logan hoped they’d help slow down the things a few extra seconds.  
  
    “Oh, _absolutely_ not,” Veronica found herself laughing, shaking her head as she exhaled and shot again, and once more. A grumbling, stumbling line of zombies still struggled their collective way against the bedroom door and all that stood in their way, including now three fallen brethren. When the wall started splitting, started chipping off at the door’s sides against the pressure, Veronica let herself worry. She fired at another zombie and got him, but she still marked herself down as worried. Watching a hefty volume bounce off the next incoming zombie’s face, Veronica almost laughed again, and wanted to yell at Logan for that. This was a serious survival situation and, “Come _on,”_ she laughed when another book bounced off one, and shot that one in the head, “Was that a Harry Potter?” She didn’t look over at Logan, she stayed focused ahead, but she heard him laugh, too.  
  
    When two zombies pushed their way through simultaneously, and the end table officially became a sacrifice of the zombie war, Veronica bit her bottom lip and set her feet harder. This was going to be the unpleasant part, with zombies advancing on her in multiples.  
  
    Abandoning books to reclaim his lamp, Logan promised himself he was going to duct tape a gun to his left hand. Maybe his right, too. Edward Gunnerhands didn’t have the same ring to it, but Logan never wanted to wage war on the undead with a bookshelf and a lamp again, if he could stand to avoid it.  
  
   Swinging at the first zombie to come close enough, Logan heard Veronica firing rapidly, and saw blood splatter and swaying zombie limbs in his periphery, bashing the lamp over the zombie’s head again.  
  
    “When you get a sec, Veronica, I wanna borrow one of your bullets,” Logan grunted, and swung the lamp again, losing the shade off the end this time, as Veronica apparently took the hint when the zombie fell down dead in front of him. “Thanks, babe,” he would’ve winked to show he was joking, but he just didn’t have the time. Pulling the bookshelf down on top of another zombie, Logan _really_ wasn’t looking forward to jumping out onto concrete.  
  
    Veronica saw Logan struggling with another zombie and took the killshot when she had it, aiming past the zombie that was coming for her. Ducking away from it, she scrambled over the bed, kneeling behind it and leaning her gun out, firing at two of the last incoming zombies, and then finally the one that was fixated on her.  
  
    When she stood, Logan’s back was to her, but she could see him struggling with a zombie in close quarters, too close for her to take the shot and risk shooting Logan.  
  
    “Lean back!” She yelled, a callback to their first exercise in team-building, and when Logan broke free from the zombie’s grip and curled himself low to the ground, she fired the final kill shot through the final zombie’s head, with an exhausted sigh.  
  
   Exhaling a relieved breath of his own, and leaning back on the floor, Logan shot her a grateful smile. “You should seriously consider going pro in that.”  
  
    “What, zombie-hunting? Or shooting at you?” Veronica took the second to grin, and then leaned off the bed, unsure if they should make the run to the car or if they had a moment to regroup. “I like you as bait, it suits you,” she came around the bed, and reached her hand down to help him up. With a not-so-small look, Veronica eyed him for bitemarks, and checked him even for preliminary scratches. Relieved when she saw nothing to be seriously concerned about, she smiled.“Are you alright?” She asked seriously, meeting his eyes when their hands lingered together too long.  
  
    “I couldn’t have taken them _all_ alone.” Logan rubbed a smudge of bullet-splattered zombie-blood off her cheek with his thumb.  
  
    “I couldn’t have, either.” She admitted, remembering her late-night almost-escape. “We’re done with my map, and you’re not a hostage anymore.” Pointing out the obvious, Veronica kept her eyes on Logan, avoiding the nine or ten zombie bodies laying around them in the bedroom. She’d had her best night’s sleep in six months of survival in that bed, and now it was surrounded by things having their final rest. There were lots of coyote ugly undead men, crumpled on the floor where they died; where she’d put them down.  
  
    “I… sort of _do_ have my own… agenda.” Logan admitted, with an uneasy shrug. It wasn’t as organized as hers, it wasn’t as color-coded, but it was decidedly simple, if she wanted in. Logan just hoped she'd want in. “Do you get seasick?” He asked, and smiled at her radical shift in expression.  
  
    “No?”  
  
    “Good, let’s get out of here first, and scheme on the road, okay?” Grabbing the car keys, and the few candles they hadn’t burnt, they walked down the stairs ready this time, Logan’s hand on Veronica’s shoulder with her gun up the whole way, but nothing else came for them.


	9. Escape Route

    Still catching up to the fact that he _had_ a plan, Veronica looked up from her map, ignoring the red, accusatory dots across it.   
  
    “So? Can you sail?” Logan asked, teasing-but-serious, a smile on his lips. Travelling around California by car, digging through the crumbling infrastructure of ravaged suburbia, they’d bonded; sure. Logan could admit that. He could admit that he liked Veronica- the time she robbed him, and the times she’d shot at him, notwithstanding.   
  
    “It’s just that, getting on a _boat_ together…” Veronica swallowed, and tried to find the right words. She didn’t want to be alone anymore, and she’d gotten used to having Logan around. She’d started liking it, at some point, against her better judgement. “This is why we weren’t supposed to share names.” Sinking down in the passenger seat, she got hard at work chewing a thumbnail.   
  
    “It’s _our_ best chance for survival,” reminding her softly, Logan took his eyes off the road to admire her pensive face. “Both of us. Surviving.” With a small laugh, Logan thought he weaseled out a grin.   
  
    “I can tuck and roll out of this vehicle.” Veronica said, matter of factly. She could. She could Charlie’s Angel duck and disappear right out of the hulking, yellow eyesore.  
  
    “I’m sort of hoping you won’t,” was the only answer Logan could scrounge up that made any sense.   
  
    “I _can’t_ tuck and roll out of a boat.” She explained herself. “There’s nothing _around_ on a boat. It’s us, me and you, in the middle of the ocean, and like. Fish, maybe.” Closing her eyes, Veronica ran her hand down her face. A boat didn’t have the kinds of contingencies Veronica had been working on for six months. She wasn’t prepared for a boat.   
  
    With a slow nod, Logan thought maybe he was starting to understand.   
  
    “You keep calling it a boat, and I do feel like I should point out that that’s really more a misnomer,” he offered, “like yes, it floats and whatever, has the hallmarks of a boat, but with like. Solar electricity, and more modern comforts. Plus, I’m pretty positive there’s fish in the ocean. I think we can count on the fish.” Logan tried to joke, but Veronica still didn’t let the smile win over her face completely.  
  
    “I just mean…” Veronica sighed, looking back at her map. “Out here, we can go our separate ways anytime. On a boat… on _your_ boat…” She took a deep breath. “A lot of the time, when I enter a room, the first thing I think about is my escape. _How_ am I getting out if I absolutely need to, you know? On a _boat…”_ She pictured herself yelling _man overboard_ and swimming for some distant, zombie-packed shore.   
  
    “Apocalypse really did a number on you, huh?” Logan blinked, and finally got a smile out of her, even if he couldn’t explain it. “You’ve got like… pathologies on top of pathologies, you know that, right?” He egged her on, earning himself a punch on the arm and a scathing glare that made him want to take cover.   
  
    “Nothing as terminal as your savior complex…” Veronica bit out with a knowing eyeroll, and laughed when he gasped in response. “Oh _please,”_ she rolled her eyes, “ _help me, I think my leg… it’s broken!”_ Faking gasps of pain, Veronica chuckled when Logan stared at her incredulously. “It’s the end of the world! We’re at war, here! A lot of other _good samaritans_ probably got themselves killed, you know. And _carrying_ me?” Blinking rapidly, waiting for his response, Veronica almost hit her face on the dashboard when Logan screeched the car to a rapid halt, an incredulous look on his face.   
  
    “Are we having this fight so I rescind my offer to share my survival yacht with you? It really is your _best_ chance of survival, I know you know that; you’re better at this than anyone I’ve ever met. Seriously.” Thinking about all the people, all the survivors Logan had come across and bonded with and left behind since the outbreak, it was true. Veronica adapted, as far as he could tell. It was a rough transition, he could see it in her face. Losing her old life, losing her father, had taken a toll on her. But if they could get to the boat… “I want you to come with me. Nothing you do, say, or mock is gonna make me take that back. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it a couple of days ago, but _honestly_ you’d just robbed me, and I wasn’t feeling very forgiving. If you don’t want to come, _I’m_ not kidnapping you. You can just drive with me to the docks, drop me at my dad’s boat, and we split the supplies in the trunk amicable-divorce style; you keep the car.” Leaning back to turn to her, Logan smiled at Veronica’s smile.   
  
    “You planned my escape?” She asked, one eyebrow up, still maybe-mocking him.   
  
    “I’m still hoping you won’t take it,” Logan smirked, and put his foot on the gas again.   
  
    “It’s still another hundred miles to those docks,” Veronica pointed out, her map spread across her knees in the passenger’s seat. Even if she _was_ agreeing with Logan’s plan, even she _did_ think it would work… “We have about sixty miles worth of gas left in the tank.” She eyed the gas gauge, and did some sketchy mental approximations.   



	10. Dashboard Light

    “I don’t know…. I think I’m ready for my apology now…” Logan sing-songed, yelling through the glass at Veronica, who was locked out of the car.   
  
    “Apology for _what?”_ Veronica cried, tugging on the car handle all the while. She could always shoot her way in, didn’t he know that?   
  
    “For robbing me, first of all. Handcuffing me. _Talk_ about starting off on the wrong foot, there. But mostly, the savior complex thing. I mean, just cause I _helped_ you, it’s gotta be a complex?” Nose pressed the window’s glass, Logan could only smile sweetly at the way Veronica growled at him.   
  
    He was keeping an eye on the zombies coming for her… She still had plenty of time to apologize to him before they made their way to being within biting distance.   
  
    “ _S_ _eriously, Logan…”_ Looking back at the gas station, zombies were still headed for them, albeit slowly, but Veronica rifling through the gas station to unlock the pumps had drawn enough attention from a few zombies nearby to cause concern. Veronica had gone in alone, with Logan staying in the car to keep it in gear and ready to bolt the second she came running with trouble following her. Logan holding her safety ransom until she _apologized_ was not at all the plan. “ _Obviously_ I was wrong about the savior-complex, apparently you’re the biggest jerk still left-alive on the whole planet, now let me _in,”_ she glared at him through the glass, still pulling on the backseat door handle.   
  
    “Judges aren’t sure that answer satisfies…” Logan feigned a yawn, and reached for his gun anyway.   
  
    “Logan!” Veronica yelled, turning to shoot one of the oncoming zombies.   
  
    Flicking the unlock button, Logan figured it was better take her watered-down apology over nothing, and _not_ let her get eaten over a practical joke. “Get in, get in,” he called, smiling at her relieved face, even though the zombies were still far enough. “You’re welcome, and hold on to something,” he cut off her angry sputtering, and swung the car in a wide circle, rolling over the zombie she’d shot in the head, and the other two that came after him.   
  
     “Pitch me again on locking myself on a boat with you,” Veronica glared at him through the rearview, and fought the smile that tugged at her lips as her adrenaline rush subsided. As Logan backed over the zombies in a kind of strange double-tap, Veronica suddenly hated the X-Terra lot less, yellow and all. “That was a dick move,” she added anyway, jumping over the console back into the passenger seat.   
  
    “Told you to let me check out the gas station and _you_ stay with the car,” Logan pointed out, reprising the argument they’d had beforehand when he very vehemently opposed the plan. “You locking _me_ out was a risk I was prepared to take,” he tsked his tongue, teasing her, as they basked in the feeling of a full gas tank.   
  
    Resources may have been rare in the apocalypse, but people to need them were even rarer, and Logan was relieved they’d struck oil when they had.   
  
    “Were you prepared to take the risk of me shooting out the windshield and climbing through the front?” Veronica’s tone smarted, even as she switched the Sum41 cd in the radio.   
  
    “I was actually,” Logan laughed, looking at her from the corner of his eye, and saw her shake her head.   
  
    “Good, just as long as you were prepared,” she bit out, and wasn’t sure it sounded as mean as she intended. The silent treatment was easy to settle into. 

* * *

  
  
    Pulled into a secluded stretch of quiet land, Logan put the car in park, and let his eyes drift over to Veronica, just a shadowy-outline in the dark of the night.   
  
    “I’m not still mad you robbed me,” Logan felt the need to clarify a thought from hours ago, clearing his throat over the Sum41 angst on repeat. “I’m actually glad you did that. Well, not that you _robbed_ me but that you… you know.” Taking another uneasy glance her way, he saw the shadow shift in her seat.   
  
    “I am actually sorry about the handcuffs,” Veronica admitted, breaking her angry, silent vow. He wouldn’t have put her in real danger, she was _almost_ sure of that, which meant he just wanted to annoy her. And so he had. “But I didn’t know if you were infected, or dangerous, or anything. And it wasn’t like I was expecting to…” The memory of crying into his shirt over shooting her undead father was still to fresh to ignore, but Veronica tried. It wasn't like she expecting to take him with her, and she definitely didn't expect to like him. “ _Thanks,_ for carrying me,” she added, leaning closer to him.   
  
    They’d planned to spend the night in the car, not taking the risk of another encounter with a big group of zombies they’d just survived the morning before. It was how Veronica passed most nights on her own, but now… After cold showers, and mattresses, and candles everywhere, Veronica listened to the outside silence and found it to be intimidating.   
  
    “You’re welcome,” Logan said, softly, “Think we’ll draw any unwanted attention if we light some tea lights in here? The moon’s… not particularly helpful tonight.” Six months of sleeping alone, and Logan remembered them like they were a million years ago. He missed the fireplace, the extra pillows, even the chaise lounge, of some gutted high-risk suburban situation.   
  
    Lighting the candles, and fishing pudding cups out of the back seat, they sat side-by-side spread out on the back bench, slurping up chocolate pudding straight out of the cups, with their eyes adjusting to mitigated darkness.   
  
    “This is kind of our last night as a zombie-fighting duo, right?” Veronica asked, turning to him a little, and getting more comfortable in the seat.   
  
    “Only if you don’t come with me,” he nudged her with his shoulder, and licked pudding from his top lip. “We’ll get to the dock’s tomorrow, yeah.” He was still unsure about what they’d exactly find there. Remembering the high-security lay-out of the upper echelons of private yacht docks, Logan wasn’t sure zombie could be out-classed out of an area. And he’d seen what they’d done to the chain-link fences of the mall.   
  
    “You _know_ we have to split up though, right?” Softly, Veronica looked to him, again, seeing the obvious like it was right there in the car with them. “Even if we _are_ the last two people on earth, that’s not a good enough reason to become… whatever we’d become to each other, you know that, Logan.” If it wasn't a clean break at the boat, it would've been something else, something probably harder and more terrible.    
  
    A far cry from insisting they stay anonymous, Logan heard her say his name, and almost wished the docks were another week’s worth of driving away.   
  
    “I mean, there’s no part of you that worries that every minute we spend together is one minute closer to you having to put me down like I had to put down my dad?” Veronica continued, “Every minute we spend together, is another minute closer to one of us getting infected or getting killed, that’s just common sense.” Veronica lost her appetite before she reached the bottom of her pudding cup, and huffed a sigh, smoothing her palm down the side of her face.   
  
    Taking a quiet breath, Logan wasn’t sure how to argue with her, but he didn’t want to agree with her.   
  
    “Do you think there’s anyplace out there that’s untouched by all this?” With a flourish of his hand, Logan was talking about the gun at his feet, and the panic in her voice. If she was adamant about splitting up, if she wouldn’t come with him… Logan wanted to enjoy his last night with human company.   
  
    “Honestly? How could there be?” Veronica answered, reluctantly, giving up all hope, finally. This was how her life was going to be, until she was killed or infected or died naturally someplace, all alone, and probably scared.   
  
    Reaching across her lap, Logan bumped their knuckles together in the soft light, until he found his way to tangling their fingers.   
  
    “Gonna get some sleep, Veronica,” he hoped he said his name as soft as she’d said his. He hoped her softness meant the same thing his did, and closing his eyes, spread out in the backseat, Logan hoped she would come with him anyway, even if there were a lot of reasons she thought she shouldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm gonna post a few more chapters tonight/tomorrow and hopefully get this thing pretty wrapped up!


	11. Long Goodbye

  It was almost like Logan remembered. A lot quieter, and missing all of the babes-in-bikinis that he saw the last time they were there, Logan still remembered the last time they were there. Drinking champagne for some after-New-Years-eve-after-party, they’d danced on the  _ Triton _ til sunrise, his family and friends, all laughing til they were all hungover. And then they just had to drink a little more.    
  
    But the dock was desolate, and clearly there’d been some level of zombie activity there, probably when there had been human activity there, but it was empty from where they could see. The  _ Triton _ still bobbed where Logan remembered they’d last tied it up, though. Giddy with relief, Logan prayed his fervent thanks to whatever shitheaded god was still up there, and tried to hold back his happiness.    
  
    From where they were parked parallel to the dock, it was impossible to predict what still waited for him on the boat. And there was still a lot that Logan was planning to learn-on-the-fly with regards to actually, you know… Sailing alone.    
  
    “Okay,  _ yeah, _ boat  _ is _ a misnomer.” Veronica clucked her tongue at the size of the big, white yacht, with it’s sprawling multi-level decks. “What’d you say your parents did again?” Blinking at the sheer size, Veronica knew there were a lot of bad things that could’ve been hiding in there, waiting to strike whatever came bounding in. And Logan looked ready to bound.   
  
    “I didn’t,” he grinned, still eyeing the marina with a nostalgia lens that was starting to fog up.   
  
   “Wanna start splitting up the supplies?” Clearing her throat, Veronica took her gun with her out of the car, and took a deep breath. All morning, she’d resigned herself to doing the right thing, to doing the  _ responsible _ thing. Maybe it would be safer with Logan, but there was a lot of risk involved with going with him that she wasn’t sure how to quantify. Waking up that morning with her head in his lap, and their hands still clasped, hadn’t made either of them feel better about splitting up. She’d blinked awake when the sun hit her face, and tried to remember how she’d gotten laid out across the back seat. And then she’d pushed them both into motion, to get on the road, get to the docks, and…   
  
    Staring at the foodstuffs, the emergency lights, the extra weapons, Veronica was as sad to part with them as she was with Logan, but knew it was necessary, too. Starting two piles, she tried to weigh necessity against desire, and smiled when he came around the truck to her.    
  
    “Go ahead, take the milky ways,” Logan put his hand to her back, leaning over the supplies, “I’ll give ‘em up, as punishment for the stunt I pulled yesterday,” he ducked his head. She hadn’t even shot him for it, and Logan figured he hadn’t shown her much gratitude for that.    
  
    “Well… that  _ does _ seem only fair,” Veronica put them in her pile, and thanked him with a smile.    
  
    Divvying up the candles, the matches, miscellaneous food items, Veronica smiled, shoulder-to-shoulder with Logan for the last time. She let herself think about the stuff she would miss; his compliments on her shooting, first of all. Someone having her back. Someone as scared as she was, but still as fearless as she was.    
  
    There  _ were _ the things she wouldn’t miss… much. The smart-ass attitude, the sharing her food, the riskiness of depending on anyone else.    
  
    Grabbing the siphon from her bag, Veronica kneeled next to the X-Terra, and caught Logan off guard.    
  
   “You don’t haveta-”   
  
    “Do you know if that thing’s fueled?” Veronica nodded towards the boat, and then nodded back to herself. “Well then, hand me something to put gas in.” Taking the old milk bottle he grudgingly handed her, Veronica siphoned gas from the tank, spitting it off her lips and letting it drip into the bottle until she was satisfied.    
  
    “What do you think?” Logan held up her shotgun level, pointing it out to sea, with a smile.    
  
    Nodding, Veronica remembered telling him it’d be a better fit for him than her favorite smaller gun, and looking at him, she’d been right.    
  
    “Keep it,” Veronica put her hand to his chest, looking down at the shotgun and then up at him.    
  
    “No, I couldn-”   
  
    “There’s extra shells in the bottom of my bag, too, take ‘em,” nodding enthusiastically, Veronica stepped back, and took a breath. “As a thank you for the milky ways,” she crossed her arms over her chest, holding herself together. Doing the right thing, the  _ sensible _ thing, wasn’t supposed to be this hard, and she hated that it was.    
  
    With her helping him lug supplies to the edge of the boat, it only took a couple of minutes to get all their supplies divided and conquered, and the next hard task was in front of them.    
  
    “You’re sure you won’t come?” Logan asked, swallowing the lump in his throat he’d been contending with all morning, since she’d woke up with sun in her eyes, across his lap. He wished there was something he could say, to get to her stay with him, he thought he’d tried all the logical arguments.    
  
    With a slow shake of her head, Veronica ignored the way she thought she felt her lip tremble.    
  
    “It’s for the best, Logan, and for what it’s worth, I hope you find some… impossibly remote island, untouched by man or zombie,” she smiled up at him, and he seemed smaller to her than he had less than a week ago. Initially he’d been tall, imposing, something to pin down so she wasn’t afraid. But looking down at her, getting ready to go without her, Veronica smiled at how much she’d changed since knowing him, too.    
  
    “Well, for what it’s worth… thank you for kidnapping me,” Logan laughed but the lump in his throat stayed stubborn.    
  
    “Anytime,” Veronica nodded, putting out her hand to shake, and Logan took it, shaking her hand.    
  
    It was friendly, and cordial, and not at all the send off Logan pictured when they woke up that morning.    
  
    “Goodbye, I guess,” Veronica shrugged, and took a step backwards, back towards the X-Terra, in all it’s ugly, yellow, behemoth-like lonesomeness. Running her finger under her eye, Veronica wasn’t surprised to find dampness. “Logan…” She turned back to the boat, and took quick steps to get back to where he was still standing.    
  
    Suddenly, she leaned up to him, pulling him down in an impulsive kiss, and felt a sob break when his arms pulled her in closer. Taking a breath when their lips parted, Veronica lingered in his arms another few seconds without opening her eyes. When she did open them, Logan’s eyes were staring at her wide, and she eased back from him, slowly, and reluctantly.    
  
    “Goodbye,” she dried her cheek on her shirtsleeve and kept her feet moving to the car. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :( there are stiiiiiill a couple chapters left, i swear this is as painful as this gets and it's all uphill from here


	12. Fight For Your Life

   Hands tight on the steering wheel, Veronica brought her forehead down against her knuckles and took a deep breath. It was the right decision, it had to be the right decision.   
_ Back to Zombieland utopia, wide open road, stark silence, and watching your own back. _ She tried to make it sound inspirational, when it just sounded defeated.    
  
    Starting the car, Veronica figured she found herself in exactly the same position as the last time she’d meant to drive away from Logan. Sad, conflicted, and absolutely clueless as to where she intended on going without him. She could survive with Logan, she knew that, because she’d done it for the better part of six months of zombie combat. Turning the car away from the docks, Veronica eyed the yacht in the rearview, and chided herself for the tear that was still lingering on her chin. Bracing herself in a final exhale, she hit the gas and decided to drive away, when she heard shotgun blasts, and turned back around, adrenaline instantly spiked.    
  
    Driving the X-Terra close to the dock, Veronica grabbed her gun and took off running to the  _ Triton, _ following the sounds of struggle she could hear below deck.    
  
    “Logan?” She called, heart pounding as she stepped over one zombie who’d suffered a headshot from her shotgun, and she was mad at herself for not helping him do the initial safety sweep. Taking a deep breath, Veronica levelled her gun, ready to shoot and crept down the stairs to a lower deck inside the yacht, when she found herself slammed back against a wall by a zombie, and her gun knocked loose from her hands.    
  
    Scrambling to regain her balance, Veronica saw Logan’s sledgehammer closer to her than her gun, and she dove for it, choking up on the handle and swinging wide at the zombie, knocking him down, and then she went for the double-tap, and kept moving through the boat, gripping the hammer tightly.    
  
    “Logan?” She called again, still hearing sounds of struggle, and saw Logan, backed into a corner by a few undead. “ _ Logan,” _ Veronica yelled, and went in swinging, bashing zombies down and away from Logan.   
  
_ If he’s dead, it’s all my fault. If he’s infected, it’s because I left. Because I was afraid of losing anyone else, I might’ve lost the last person I have.  _ _ No, _ she thought.  Smashing zombie limbs away, swinging wildly until she had beaten them to a distance, she started knocking them down, beating the hammer furiously at their bodies and faces, sending gore and brains splattering everywhere, until Logan stopped the hammer, grabbing at it from behind her.    
  
   “They’re dead,” Logan whispered, pulling her into his chest and dropping the hammer away, “They’re all dead, and I’m okay, you’re okay,” he spoke softly into her hair, and breathed a sigh of relief that she’d saved his life. That she’d come back. “Does this mean you’re gonna help me clean the zombie guts out of the kitchen tile?” He asked after a few quiet moments of letting her breathe.    
  
    “Only if you’ll help me unpack the rest of the car,” pulling back to look up at him, Veronica smiled, and kept smiling when he leaned down to kiss her, and this time it wasn’t goodbye.    



	13. Post-Post Apocalypse

    “Pull.” Logan heard Veronica speak softly to herself on the deck, before firing her gun at a moving seagull, sending it splashing down at the ocean’s surface. Stretching his arms out at her, Logan stumbled across the deck feigning clumsiness, earning himself a reproachful laugh.  
  
    “That’s a good way to get yourself shot, Logan,” she mustered a glare that only fractured when Logan pecked a kiss at her nose.  
  
   “ _Why_ does you threatening to shoot me always make me smile?” He mused, and squinted into the sun as a seagulls’ cry overhead distracted them. “Maybe it’s because I’m still intact,” smiling to himself, months after the last close-call, Logan didn’t let himself think about the hardest days, anymore. Not when he’d had so many good ones, since.  
      
  “Here, you try it,” Veronica smiled, and pushed her gun into Logan’s hands, both of their eyes still towards the sky. “Pull,” she whispered, once he’d shouldered the shotgun, and he fired on her cue, at a seagull in the sky a little south of them.  
  
    With a satisfying splash, the seagull fell to the water, and Logan looked down at Veronica’s impressed face.  
  
    “Not too bad, Echolls; the seagull population better watch out,” she smiled, taking the gun back from him and laying it on the deck, angling against him.  
  
  “Hey, it’s your move, I just borrowed it,” smoothing blonde hair from her temple, Logan twisted his lips into a half-smile. The bad things were still out there. Sometimes, when they made supply runs on shore, they still ran into the undead. Their families were still dead, or worse. They couldn’t change the whole world, but they had sort of made their own. “Come inside,” Logan pulled her.  
  
    Leading Veronica below deck, to the master suite, Logan smiled at the sledgehammer they still kept next to the bed, it’s own sort of escape hatch, that they hadn’t ever had to use.  
  
    “Did I ever show you where my dad kept the good stuff on this baby?” He asked, turning to her with a smile.  
  
    Reaching into a high cabinet, Logan brandished the champagne he was looking for, and pulled a milky way from his back pocket.  
  
    “Oh? Are we celebrating?” Veronica threw herself on the bed, and made space for him next to her.  
   
    For months, Veronica figured she’d been relatively safe, relatively happy, and even relatively comfortable. With the boat’s solar-powered generator, they even had hot showers. Veronica was almost ready to re-christen the _Triton_  as _Paradise;_ as it’s own little island unto itself, it wasn’t the strained, trapped experience she imagined months ago from the shore. Fighting zombies only on their supply runs, the worst part then was worrying she’d miss her shots due to not having her land legs totally back and her balance being off.  
  
    “Of course,” Logan plopped into the bed next to her, kissing her cheek. “You showed me your skeet-shooting trick,” he still wore that half-smile. “And, we survived a whole year after the end of the world,” Logan added, softly.  
  
    Nodding, Veronica exhaled a sigh. They didn’t usually need to know the day of the week, there weren’t regular deadlines in their lives, but the dates they usually tried to keep regular track of. It’s slipped her mind that the anniversary of the outbreak was coming up at all.  
  
    “A year since the outbreak,” she bit a piece from the milky way, and let champagne bubbles tickle her lips as she thought about that.  
  
    “Think the hard part’s over?” Logan asked, a hopeful smile on his lips as he spread out on the bed.  
  
    “I think we’ve definitely been worse off,” Veronica shrugged, and felt like she was letting go of a breath she’d been holding for a year. Pressing her lips to his in a bittersweet kiss, Veronica smiled, and let herself enjoy surviving.  
     
    “You think we could’ve gotten together in the last world?” He asked, framing her chin as she tucked herself against him in the bed.  
  
    “What, like, as co-eds or high school sweethearts or something?” Veronica laughed, trying to picture it. “Maybe,” she shrugged against him.  
  
    “I like you better with weapons training,” he admitted, trying to picture her in a high school pep squad outfit, or studying in the college quad.  
  
    “Oh, I _always_ had weapons training,” Veronica laughed when that silenced him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew! happy belated halloween, and a big thanks to everyone who rode this crack thing out til the end :P
> 
>  
> 
> i'd be lying to you if i said i wasn't already working on posting my next big LoVe undertaking, haha. until then, thanks!

**Author's Note:**

> here's the thing, i /do/ understand that this so far from canon and very, very cracky but. Veronica cutting down zombies is something i've just been thinking about for so long, and it's almost halloween, and i'm gonna try to keep it short. (try!) but fun, lots of fun. just by nature of the genre it may be a little bloodier and a little more violent and action-y than i'm used to writing, so. we'll see how it goes! :P


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